David Cameron has published the text of the motion authorising airstrikes against Islamic State (Isis) in Syria that will be put to a vote tomorrow. It had been drafted to try to appeal to Labour MPs, incorporating in approximate terms the four conditions set by Labour in the motion on Syria passed by the party at its September conference. (Some Labour MPs think the four Labour conditions have been met, but Jeremy Corbyn and others do not accept that.) MPs have been given 10 and a half hours to debate the motion, starting at 11.30am tomorrow.
Corbyn has claimed that only a “small number” of “diehard” Labour MPs will vote for airstrikes. The latest estimates are that around 30 to 40 Labour MPs will back the government, around half the number Tory whips were reportedly expecting a few days ago. In an interview with Jeremy Vine, Corbyn said MPs should remember that Labour party members were opposed to airstrikes. There are claims that some MPs feel they are being intimidated by Corbynites into voting against the government.
A Labour MP, Louise Haigh, has claimed that she was told at a briefing by the national security adviser that there are only 40,000 moderate opposition fighters in Syria. The government claimed in a document last week there were 70,000. She posted the claim on Twitter.
National Security Adviser confirms number of moderates on ground in Syria is 40,000 rest are much more radical Islamists
But two MPs at the same briefing, Labour’s Stephen Doughty and the Conservative Gavin Barwell, said she had misunderstood what was said at the briefing.
.@LouHaigh he didn't say that Louise - and dismay in room from all sides (pro/against/unsure) that you have tweeted that from the meeting.
George Osborne, the chancellor, has said the referendum on EU membership may not be held until the end of 2017. Giving evidence to the Commons Treasury commitee, he said that if a deal could be done on reforming the relationship with Brussels he would like the vote held as soon as possible. But there was nothing to stop it being held in the second half of 2017 even though the UK would be holding the rotating presidency of the European Council then, he said. He told the MPs:
I don’t see that [the presidency] as an obstacle. That comes towards the end of the period allowed by the law that’s passing through the House of Lords at the moment, that’s the back end of 2017. As we made clear, we are going to try and negotiate this as soon as we can provided we get an agreement. We have got two years in which to do it, but if we have to have the referendum in the latter part of 2017 we will do so.
Labour has cancelled a phone canvassing event at party HQ tonight because of the Stop the War Coalition protest taking place there (see 3.10pm), Guido Fawkes reports.
This is from Mark Ferguson, the former LabourList editor.
Was looking forward to phone banking for @CllrJimMcMahon at Labour HQ today.
It’s been cancelled due to a Stop The War demo outside *sigh*
In his Radio 2 interview Jeremy Corbyn said that he thought Labour MPs were getting more and more sceptical about the case for airstrikes. (See 12.15pm.)
As PoliticsHome’s Kevin Schofield reports, there are claims that some MPs feel intimidated by pressure from the Corbynites.
Number of Labour MPs voting for bombing likely to be 30-40. Source says: "Many are facing appalling intimidation from the anti-war brigade."
A spokesman for Hilary Benn, the shadow foreign secretary, has responded to what Jeremy Corbyn said in his Radio 2 interview about how people would die under the policy backed by Benn. (See 2.02pm.) The spokesman said: “Inaction has a cost in lives too.”
At the Commons defence committee hearing earlier Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, said acknowledged that the 70,000 moderate Syrian opposition fighters mentioned in the government document published last week were not a coherent force. He told the committee.
Those 70,000 are not all in one place, they are not a new model army drilled outside the walls of Raqqa. They are spread through Syria. They are fighting on a whole range of fronts but they are fighting Assad.
One of the reasons for us getting more involved in fighting Isil in Syria is to relieve the pressure on them so that they are not being squeezed by both sides - by both Isil and Assad.
Lieutenant General Gordon Messenger, the deputy chief of the defence staff, who was giving evience alonside Fallon, said that while the moderate opposition was not a coherent force, it would be wrong to dismiss them as a “rag tag army”. He told the MPs:
If you look at what they have managed to achieve in terms of territory preservation in both the north and the south, it is considerable. They have been up against enormous pressure. We see them as critical to preserve in order to avoid Syria becoming essentially a choice between Assad or Isil [Isis], neither of which we assess to be acceptable.
It has also put out a statement saying those MPs most in favour of airstrikes are those with “a strong commitment to Britain’s role as a global military player, and as an unquestioning junior partner to the US as global policeman, whatever the concrete situation.”
These MPs also the people who got it wrong on Iraq, the statement says.
There is one piece of research that all MPs would do well to do in the run up to Wednesday night’s vote. Let them examine the previous judgements of those arguing to take us into the fourth war on a Muslim country in fourteen years.
Without exception, those keenest on the war, if they were in parliament, voted for the occupation of Iraq in 2003, widely regarded as the worst foreign policy disaster since Suez.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians died and the country was plunged into the very chaos from which Isis emerged.
Those voting for that war include David Cameron, Michael Fallon, Philip Hammond and George Osborne for the Tories and leading figures of the minority hawks in Labour, Hilary Benn, Tom Watson, Yvette Cooper, Maria Eagle and Angela Eagle.
George Osborne, the chancellor, is giving evidence to the Commons Treasury committee. He told it that around £200m a year was already being spent on military operations in Iraq and supporting opposition forces in Syria, and that the cost of extending airstrikes to Syria would be “in the low tens of millions of pounds”.
I think the estimate of extending air action over Syria would be in the low tens of millions of pounds. That would come out of the special reserve, which is what we established for the purposes of military action like this.
All questions in the Commons have been cancelled tomorrow to make time for the Syria debate. That means it will start at 11.30am, and run until 10pm - going on for 10 and a half hours in total.
Jeremy Corbyn's interview with Jeremy Vine - Summary
Here is a full summary of Jeremy Corbyn’s interview with Jeremy Vine. It was one of the best he’s given as Labour leader because mostly he was just saying what he thought. Even Vine said he recognised the “force” and “conviction” Corbyn was showing.
Here are the key points.
Corbyn said that only a “small number” of “diehard” Labour MPs were going to vote for airstrikes.
I think that there will be a large majority of Labour MPs voting against the war. There are a small number who are very diehard in supporting the war.
He said suggested imposing a three-line whip would have made no difference because the Labour MPs supporting airstrikes would have voted with the government anyway.
They would probably have supported the war whether there was a whip or not.
He also admitted that he had a history of defying the whip himself.
He claimed that, in opposing the government motion, he would be articulating Labour party policy. Asked what the party’s position was, he replied:
The party conference passed a resolution at Brighton at the end of September in which it said in terms that there had to be clear UN approval and there had to be a political process in Syria. There isn’t a clear political process, although one is developing through the Vienna conference, and that we welcome. It does not give authority for military action because it is not a chapter 7 resolution within the terms of the UN charter ...
My view is that the terms of the Labour party conference motion have not been met, and thererfore when I speak tomorrow to oppose the government’s military strategy in Syria, I believe I’m carrying out the terms of the Labour party conference motion.
He repeatedly appealed to Labour MPs, including those minded to support Cameron, to vote against airstrikes tomorrow.
I appeal to them to think again. Think of the complications and the implications of what we’re doing and please cast your vote against supporting this government’s military endeavours in Syria.
MPs should think “very carefully” about voting for airstrikes, he said. They should remember the damage done by the Iraq vote. “The ghost of Iraq is still there.”
He defended his decision to allow MPs a free vote. It meant MPs would have “no hiding place”, he said.
Maybe people should think of it another way. I’m saying to every MP; you make up your own mind, there’s no hiding place behind a whipping arrangement or not, your decision on behalf of your constituents whether or not we should commit British troops into yet another war in the Middle East, with no endgame in sight, not proper plan in sight.
He said the 70,000 moderate Syrian opposition fighters mentioned by Cameron in his memo last week on the case for war were “mythical”. And many of them were probably not moderates, he said. He described them as “a mythical 70,000-strong apparently unknown Free Syrian Army operation, which is also infiltrated by a lot of jihadist elements”.
He said that innocent people would die under the policy backed by Hilary Benn, the shadow foreign secretary. Asked why Benn was supporting airstrikes, he replied:
His belief is that we can get rid of Isil by bombing them. My reply, to him and to everybody else that supports bombing - when you bomb a town like Raqqa, where there are several hundred thousand people living there, who may or may not wish to be under Isil control - indeed, many are trying to escape from there - we’re going to kill people. We’re going to kill people in their homes by our bombs. I think we should be very careful about that.
When asked why Benn did not accept this, Corbyn said Vine would have to ask Benn himself. By chance, Benn was shown being interviewed on Sky at the same time as Corbyn’s was being broadcast.
He said he had deliberately appointed a shadow cabinet representing a wide range of views, even thought that had not made things easier. He did so because he wanted to reach out to all sections of the party, he said.
He said Labour MPs minded to vote for airstrikes should remember that party members generally were opposed. The PLP was not the entire party, he said.
Labour MPs must be aware of what our members think, must be aware of our conference resolution and must be aware of how this whole thing can unravel in such a terrible way ...
I did point out to the PLP last night that the parliamentary Labour party is a very important part of the Labour party, but it is not the entirety of it.
He said Labour was “very united on economic and social issues”.
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