Corbyn to Wembley, Cameron back to Commons
After a day of to-ing and fro-ing, Jeremy Corbyn has surrendered to pressure and changed his line. He spent much of the day resisting calls to go to the England France football match but is now on his way.
One long marcher who has been with Jeremy Corbyn throughout the leadership campaign sighed at the time it had taken to get him to go to the match and referred to him as “our politically adolescent leader”.
Possibly as soon as next week the Labour leader will have to respond to a statement in the Commons from David Cameron calling for Britain to become involved in military air strikes against so-called Islamic State targets in Syria.
The PM told the Commons today that he would personally reply to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee’s criticism of his plan to join in attacks on Syria (the format is usually to publish a stapled HMSO document).
Number 10 insists this is more than a change in format but the timing is intriguing. The Prime Minister’s office hated seeing headlines about how they’d put the hope of getting Commons backing for attacks on Syria on to the back burner. In many ways it sounded like an accurate account of where we’d got to.
The whips weren’t doing much sounding out on Tory benches, ministers weren’t doing any more coordinated attempts to win over Labour rebels. The whole thing did seem to be on hold. But putting that situation up in lights was pure horror for the government.
It advertised helplessness as far as they were concerned, suggested lack of enthusiasm to the US and threatened our standing in Washington, which was already tarnished.
No sooner is the PM back from his latest chat with the US President at the G20 in Turkey and there is a push in the Commons to show commitment and to drum up support.
The PM’s aides report being encouraged by some of the voices in the Commons today and some of the Labour criticism of Labour’s leader. But they didn’t know they were going to get that when they went into the chamber. There had not been soundings amongst MPs. This, it seems, was provoked by overseas voices, events in Paris and the possibility of shifts in Moscow.
David Cameron insists that when he speaks to the Commons next week he will be able to answer all the questions posed by the select committee. All seven are tricky but the fifth is particularly so: whose boots will be on the ground to hold and administer areas formerly held by Isil?
You can see the scenarios laid out here in Michael Clarke’s article in today’s Guardian. It’ll be one of the most interesting sections of a letter that officials must now start working on. When any new vote happens will depend on the response it gets from MPs.
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