After the 2015 UK general election , in the Second Shadow Cabinet of Harriet Harman , Benn was named Shadow Foreign Secretary , after the incumbent , Douglas Alexander , lost his seat to Mhairi Black of the SNP . On 17 June , Benn deputised for Harriet Harman at Prime Minister 's Questions , when David Cameron was overseas in Europe , and Benn was Harman 's unofficial deputy . One of the questions he asked challenged George Osborne , who was deputising for Cameron , over whether HMS '' Bulwark '' was under active review as revealed in a report by '' The Guardian '' . Writing for the '' New Statesman '' , George Eaton commended Benn 's performance , saying : " Benn smartly denied the Chancellor the chance to deploy his favourite attack lines by devoting his six questions to national security and the Mediterranean refugee crisis , rather than the economy . " In September 2015 , both leadership and deputy leadership elections took place in the Labour Party . Benn supported Caroline Flint in the deputy leadership election , and Andy Burnham in the leadership election . Following the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Leader of the Labour Party in September , Benn retained the role of Shadow Foreign Secretary in Corbyn 's shadow cabinet , and stressed that Labour would campaign to remain in the EU " under all circumstances " . This was later affirmed by a joint statement released by both Benn and Corbyn , which said that " Labour will be campaigning in the referendum for the UK to stay in the European Union . " On 20 September , Benn signalled that Labour could back Prime Minister David Cameron 's plans for airstrikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ( ISIL ) in Syria : " What we 've said consistently is that the government , if it has got a proposal , should bring that to the House of Commons . In relation to airstrikes , we shall look at the objectives . At the moment we do n't know what the proposal is ... We will judge that against the objective , the legal base ... " In November 2015 , after the Paris attacks that had occurred a few days earlier , Benn initially agreed with Corbyn 's position rejecting the proposal for Britain to launch airstrikes against ISIL in Syria and any intervention . However , Benn subsequently supported plans laid out by the Prime Minister , and said he would not resign over his disagreement with Corbyn because he was " doing his job as the Shadow Foreign Secretary " . Benn had voted in favour of the Iraq War in 2003 and the 2011 military intervention in Libya , but voted against military intervention against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2013
Paris attacks
November 2015 Paris attacks
Hilary Benn