Corbyn shadow cabinet: the sequel
As the shadow cabinet meeting began some members started looking at their phones. The Guardian, for years home to Seamus Milne, Mr Corbyn’s new head of strategy, had just put up a story suggesting that it was a fait accompli that Labour policy was now to oppose air strikes but MPs would be free to vote against that.
Mr Corbyn was just starting to explain this new plan when shadow cabinet members started piping up: “It’s already here on Twitter.” Jeremy Corbyn urged people in the room to stop any texting or tweeting from the room. “It says it’s from the leader’s office,” one shadow cabinet member corrected him.
Mr Corbyn said he didn’t know anything about that. “Do you, Seamus?” one MP asked.
It wasn’t long before Andy Burnham was querying the very basis of the new plan. He said that if Labour MPs voted against a newly certified anti-air strikes policy it would amount to “throwing them to the wolves,” by which he meant angry anti-war Corbynistas who would have a good basis for attacking the MP and maybe in time de-selecting them.
It was also pointed out that the plan risked Hilary Benn, shadow foreign secretary, speaking from the backbenches rather than the frontbenches.
In the end the room pushed back against the idea of enshrining a new party policy that was anti-war. Instead they agreed that party policy remains the conference resolution passed in September in Brighton which Mr Corbyn thinks isn’t satisfied by David Cameron’s words and which Hilary Benn argues has been satisfied.
A few hours after Mr Corbyn’s team masterminded a pushback against the PLP rebels who want to support air strikes, testing the ground for a three-line whip backing Mr Corbyn’s opposition to air strikes, they have had to concede defeat.
They can (and do) argue that they have made significant gains on the journey. The number of Labour MPs backing military action is now thought to be around 50 or so, not close to 100, where rebels (and some anti-war senior figures in the party) originally thought it could be.
Supporters of the pushback plan believe they’ve got it even lower and could’ve squeezed it to a couple of dozen with a three-line whip strategy fully pursued. The numbers from the whips’ office appear to be less encouraging from Mr Corbyn’s position.
But there’s a difference between nearly half the PLP rebelling and around a quarter. And Mr Corbyn and his team will feel that his advocacy of the anti-war argument on the airwaves and the galvanising of his grassroots supporters has moved the argument in their direction.
Even Labour MPs supportive of air strikes accept that but argue they won a battle in the Labour war today in shadow cabinet.
As for the real war under discussion, David Cameron now has the votes to win comfortably. Even if only 20 Labour MPs joined him he’d win wth a majority of 80 plus because he has Unionists and I understand the Lib Dem MPs too on-side thanks to a change of heart by Tim Farron.
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