Unmanned RAF aerial drones armed with Hellfire missiles have been patrolling the skies over Syria for months seeking to target British jihadis on a “kill list” drawn up by senior ministers on the UK National Security Council shortly after the election.
As the defence secretary Michael Fallon said ministers would not hesitate to approve further strikes against jihadis who have their own kill list, Jeremy Corbyn led a cross-party group of MPs who raised doubts about the change in strategy.
Corbyn said: “There has to be a legal basis for what’s going on. This is war without parliamentary approval. And in fact parliament specifically said no to this war in September 2013.”
But regardless of what these people are alleged to be planning or have done, the UK does not have the death penalty for any crime, and judgements of guilt or innocence (and appropriate punishments for the guilty) are supposed to be decided by independent and impartial courts, not by ministers with an eye to how it will look in the press and whether it will appeal enough to "Essex man". Murdering your citizens by executive fiat is what tyrannies do. The obvious conclusion is left as an exercise for the reader.
Meanwhile, the government won't say who was at the meeting where this list was drawn up. And there's a pretty obvious reason why: because each and every one of them is now on the hook for murder, and should be prosecuted for it.