Mr Benn, whose son Hilary Benn is due to make the pro-war position for Labour, against the views of the party’s leader Jeremy Corbyn, criticised the UK’s record in the region after the start of the first Gulf War.

“We have forgotten that the story is part of an unhappy record of British relations in the middle east,” he told MPs in the debate, which occurred over 23 years ago on 23 November 1992.

“The double standards of British policy in the middle east will be noticed by anyone in the Arab world who reads the report of today's debate. We did not take the same view as we took about Kuwait when Turkey invaded Cyprus or when the occupied territories were taken over by Israel.”

“Considered in the light of what we now know, the Gulf war is seen to be a war for profit, oil and control of the region.

“Now we are suddenly told that the Ministers, who so vigorously protested their defence of democracy and human rights, were selling weapons to Sadam Hussein who was represssing Kurds and Shi'ites before and after the war. Those Ministers then said that it was merely a matter of flexible guidelines.”

In 1991 the US and UK invaded Iraq after its dictator Saddam Hussein, who the UK and US had previously armed, invaded Kuwait.

In 2015, the Government has come under criticism from human rights groups for its alliance with Saudi Arabia, where crimes such as converting away from Islam are still punishable by beheading.