UK Labour MP Emily Thornberry under fire after selection as head of foreign affairs committee

Labour MP Emily Thornberry has been appointed as chair of the UK parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, to the outrage of Syria activists over comments made when she was the party's shadow foreign secretary.

Thornberry was voted in as chair by British MPs on Wednesday, who are in the process of electing select committees - cross-party bodies that oversee government expenditure and policies - for the next parliamentary term.

"I am delighted to have been elected Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee and grateful for the support of my colleagues across the whole House," said Thornberry in a statement.

"In an increasingly challenging and volatile world, with Britain’s interest in peace, prosperity and security under threat, scrutiny of foreign policy is more important than ever. We also cannot waver in our commitment to upholding and advocating for human rights and international law. 

"As Foreign Affairs Committee Chair, I will aim to drive consensus by working cross-party, to ensure that the Foreign Office is held to account."

The Islington South MP was chosen by former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to serve as shadow foreign secretary between 2016 and 2020, which coincided with key events in the Middle East including the UK's intervention against the Islamic State group, US President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, and the war in Yemen.

Crucially, it also coincided with Bashar Al-Assad's crackdown on a domestic uprising in Syria, where chemical weapons, barrel bombs, and other weaponry were used against civilian populations.

Thornberry and her boss Jeremy Corbyn were widely criticised for the stance taken toward the war in Syria, with many accusing the pair of being soft on Assad, who is widely blamed for the deaths of around 500,000 Syrians.

In 2018, she told Prospect Magazine that Assad - who launched a massive and violent crackdown on peaceful protests in 2011 - was more popular with Syrians than the West thinks, despite tens of thousands of children being killed in the Syrian regime's ruthless campaign against opposition areas and around 130,000 Syrians being disappeared.

"There is an argument that if [Assad] had been as overwhelmingly unpopular as the rebels told the West at the outset, then he wouldn't be there," she said. "I think there has been a depth and a breadth of support for Assad that has been underestimated."

Following chemical attacks on opposition areas, Thornberry failed to blame the culprit - the Syrian regime - despite overwhelming evidence of who was to blame, and said rebel "militias" in the area should leave, essentially putting the lives of thousands of Syrians who opposed to Assad in his hands.

Thornberry then received briefings on the situation in Syria from Peter Ford, according to the BBC, a former ambassador to Damascus who has been accused of parroting pro-Russian talking points on MENA issues and was co-chair of the British-Syrian Society lobbying group headed by Bashar Al-Assad's father-in-law who once said the dictator's "calmness and resilience... amaze me".

Syrians and Middle East experts said her stance during the Syria war should raise questions about her position to head the foreign affairs committee.

British-Syrian writer Robin Yassin-Kassab wrote on X: "Emily Thornberry's genocide spin: anti-Sunni prejudice, orientalist sneering, deliberate misunderstanding of the Syrian revolution, a perverse implication that Assad's is the 'secular' side when 80% of his forces in Aleppo are non-Syrian Shia jihadis."

Middle East analyst Charles Lister wrote: "The #UK's new Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee is on the record claiming Bashar al-#Assad's 'popularity' inside #Syria is "underestimated" & that the #UK should have supported #Russia's "diplomacy" on #Syria "for the sake of Syrian kids."

Hamdi Rifai, a Syrian-American activist and lawyer, commented: "The UK Foreign Affairs Committee is now chaired by a propagandist for war criminal Assad. Assad has murdered over a million Syrians and Emily Thornberry thinks that makes him 'popular'."

More recently, Thornberry was criticised by Palestinians after saying Israel "had a right to defend itself" when asked whether Israel's cutting of power and other vital supplies to Gaza broke international law.

She later said this siege tactic would only be acceptable for a limited period of time.

Some welcomed Thornberry's appointment, saying she played a key role in the release of British-Iranian captives Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anousheh Ashouri from detention in Tehran, while others said she has been a strong supporter of Hong Kong citizens, against the increasingly authoritarian reach of the state.

The New Arab reached out to Thornberry for comment but received no response at the time of publication.