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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well David Cameron’s conversation with Barack Obama after Thursday’s vote in the House of Commons would probably have been a very awkward one. Britain had been of course at the forefront of international pressure on the Syrian regime but when it came to the Commons, the Prime Minister just couldn’t muster the support of Parliament. So does this weaken our reputation abroad and our relationship with our key ally? Let’s say a very good morning then to the Foreign Secretary then, who joins me from North Yorkshire. First of all, Mr Hague, President Obama’s decision last night announcing that he will consult Congress, are you not kicking yourself now that a big part of the rebellion you faced in the House of Commons on Thursday is that some MPs felt they were being rushed headlong into a pre-arranged decision. It now seems that you could have given it time.

WILLIAM HAGUE: Well as the Prime Minister said, we respect and support that decision. Remember that we were saying in Parliament, in our Parliament on Thursday that there would be a second vote, this was not even going to be the decisive vote even if it had been carried on Thursday, we were giving Parliament a second vote at a later stage if we wanted to go ahead with military action, so that of course would have been rather similar to President Obama setting out this timetable in Congress now and the United States of course must make its own decision so we entirely respect and support what the President announced.

DM: But MPs wouldn’t have needed to be recalled, they could have come back normally from their recess, they wouldn’t have been presented with what some of them felt was rather hastily assembled legal advice and intelligence background. I mean look at the United States, what they presented on the intelligence front, why didn’t you have access to that?

WH: First of all we wanted Parliament to look at these things as quickly as possible, this chemical attack took place on 21st August so we were already meeting more than a week later than that. We have set a good record in the current government of consulting Parliament, we went to Parliament as quickly as possible for instance over the Libya crisis when we took military action then. We want Parliament to be able to consider things as quickly as possible. This is democracy, of course democracy didn’t work out or produce the result that we had hoped for but we have to respect that, it is democracy. So I don't think we should have any regrets or recrimination about that. On your point about the publication about what our intelligence services say, we did present to Parliament on Thursday the key judgements of the Joint Intelligence Committee, done very differently from the time of the Iraq War, this is their key judgements without any political interference, without any spin or gloss being put on it. Yes, the United States then followed up with further detail the next day but the key judgements were the same, that this was a chemical attack, that it was the Assad regime that did it and that people can beyond any reasonable doubt are safe in making that assumption. So all our debates should be conducted on that basis, the evidence is there and sadly the evidence of many hundreds of dead people is there.

DM: So what for the future? If the vote is passed in the United States, if more evidence of the atrocities carried out by the Assad regime are presented by the United Nations, would you try again in the House of Commons or is that it, your hands are tied?

WH: Parliament has spoken as the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have already said, Parliament has spoken and I don't think it is realistic to think that we can go back to Parliament every week on the same question having received no for an answer. I think anybody looking at this objectively would see that in order for Parliament in any circumstances to come to a different conclusion then people would have to be more persuaded by the evidence and as I say there is a great deal of evidence there, I’m not sure that the extra evidence that the United States presented would have made a difference to those doubting the evidence in the House of Commons and the Labour leadership would have to play a less partisan and less opportunistic role and be prepared to take yes for an answer in terms of the motion that we present to the House of Commons. We had taken on board all the points that they had made before the debate on Thursday so all those things would have to happen to get a different result in the House of Commons and I can’t see any immediate possibility of that.

DM: So how angry – you mentioned there the Labour leadership, how angry are you at them? You say opportunistic, do you feel they lack principles?

WH: Well there is no point getting angry in politics, that has never been my approach but certainly I was disappointed with that. I think with an issue like this, we’re talking about the national interest and major concerns in international affairs, the lives and deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. We’re talking about the most serious crisis so far of the 21st century, the whole situation in the Middle East and the first use of chemical warfare in the 21st century. On such occasions everyone should be able to rise above any party interest and I think the Labour party leadership has some hard thinking to do about their approach. There is serious concern in other capitals, not just across the Atlantic but in European capitals as well, about the position they have taken in voting down a government motion that actually had in it pretty much everything that they asked for but nevertheless we and the government must dust ourselves down from that defeat, get on with every other aspect of working on the Syria crisis, all of our humanitarian assistance, our immense diplomatic efforts to try to bring a political diplomatic solution to the Syria crisis and we will continue to try to work with other parties, including the Labour party, on these issues.

DM: Did you take it personally, do you feel you are diminished in your office in that for two years and more you have been pushing for stronger action against Assad, not just here of course but particularly in Washington and Europe as well. Now you are no longer able to do that.

WH: Well it’s a setback of course for any government and for any Minister to lose a vote in the House of Commons, we have to recognise and be honest about that but these things happen in politics. As I said, this is democracy and we want an active vigorous Parliament as well as an effective policy on these things so I think we have to take that in our stride, respect the vote in Parliament. We are still working closely with our allies on a daily, on an hourly basis, on trying to resolve the Syrian crisis, alleviate the suffering of the people there and of course the chemical weapons issue still needs to be confronted. It is still my firm belief that unless the world confronts the use of chemical weapons then the ultimate confrontation will only be bigger and more painful but clearly our role in the coming days is to support others, diplomatically support others in dealing with that rather than being able to participate ourselves in any military sense.

DM: We’ve heard how strongly you feel about this over the months as I say, did you ever consider resignation over this? As you said yourself, this is one of the defining issues of the 21st century, you have been flatly declined, your strategy has been flatly declined by the House of Commons, what can you do about it now?

WH: Well one part of it has. I do stress that the great majority of what we do in Syria, in relation to Syria, is not military and will at no stage be military. In Britain we are the second biggest donors of humanitarian assistance, we are helping hundreds of thousands of people all the time with food, with shelter, with water supplies, we send life-saving equipment that has saved many lives in Syria. We’re engaged in a major diplomatic effort including directly with Russia, we’ve continued to talk to Russia, the Prime Minister and I have been doing that in recent days on what might ultimately be a diplomatic solution. So it isn’t that our entire approach to Syria has been rejected or our entire foreign policy rejected and that wasn’t really what MPs, certainly coalition MPs who voted against the government, were objecting to in the vote on Thursday. They were concerned about the shadow of Iraq, they were concerned about being drawn into a long conflict in Syria. We are as determined as them to learn the lessons from Iraq and not to be drawn, nobody was contemplating putting boots on the ground in Syria, but it isn’t that our entire approach to the region and to the Syrian conflict has been rejected so I think it is right for us all to persist with that wider approach and to continue to work with our allies on it.

DM: So you never considered resignation?

WM: No, the Prime Minister is very clear that we all have to get on with this in the way that I just described and that’s what we are all in the Cabinet determined to do.

DM: Let me ask you this though, as things stand now, President Obama has made it very, very clear that he wants to send a military message to the Syrian regime because of its use of chemical weapons. Assuming he gets that vote past Congress, we will see those missiles being launched. What help could Britain offer the Americans as they carry out that attack?

WM: As I mentioned a moment ago, we will support other nations in confronting the terrible threat of the repeated use of chemical weapons. This is now a decision clearly for the United States Congress, President Obama has put it to the Congress and we must put respect what they decide but Britain won’t play a military role, let me be clear about that. We will respect the decision of the House of Commons, we have not been asked to assist in recent days in any background military role so that doesn’t arise. Our support will be diplomatic, it will be political. It’s for them to decide. They, I must say, have been very respectful of our democratic decision and the Prime Minister, you referred in your introduction to the Prime Minister having had discussions with President Obama and I have with Secretary Kerry as well after the vote. It is clear that the special relationship remains, they have been very good about the result of our vote and understand that we respect the democratic procedures in our country and so equally we will respect theirs. We are not going to get involved in their domestic, their Congressional debate but I do believe this threat has to be confronted and as I say, if it is not confronted now the confrontation in the end will only be bigger.

DM: Foreign Secretary, thank you very much indeed for your time. William Hague there.

WM: Thank you very much.