David Lammy branded Bashar al-Assad “the rat of Damascus” after the deposed Syrian dictator fled to Russia.
The foreign secretary launched his angry broadside in the House of Commons as he also said the UK had been right not to engage with Assad’s brutal regime.
Assad was removed from power after 24 years following a stunning uprising by rebels led by the militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s envoy to international organisations in Vienna, wrote on Telegram on Sunday: “Bashar Assad and his family are in Moscow. Russia never leaves its friends in a trouble.”
Updating MPs on Monday, Lammy said: “There were those who used to call Assad the lion of Damascus. Now we see the reality: Assad is the rat of Damascus, fleeing to Moscow with his tail between his legs. How fitting he should end up there.
“Increasingly, other governments were also starting to step up their presence in Damascus. This government chose not to engage. We said no, because Assad is a monster. We said no, because Assad was a dictator whose sole interest was his wealth and his power.
“We said no, because Assad is a criminal who defied all laws and norms to use chemical weapons against the Syrian people.
“We said no, because Assad is a butcher with the blood of countless innocents on his hands. We said no, because Assad was a drug dealer funding his regime through Captagon and illicit finance. We said no because he was never, ever going to change.”
Meanwhile, Keir Starmer said it was “far too early” to say whether the UK will lift its ban on Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which was proscribed as a terrorist group in 2017 because of its association with al-Qaeda.
Lammy told MPs: “Thus far, HTS has offered reassurances to minorities in Aleppo, Hama and Damascus.
“They have also committed to cooperating with the international community over monitoring chemical weapons. We will judge HTS by their actions, monitoring closely how they and other parties to this conflict treat all civilians in areas they control.”
But he added: “We should recognise that al-Qaeda killed hundreds of British citizens in barbaric attacks spanning decades and that was the original reason that this organisation HTS was proscribed.”