“He had no choice,” said one shadow cabinet minister, describing how Jeremy Corbyn was forced by colleagues to back down on his demand that Labour officially oppose airstrikes in Syria. The revolt of the shadow cabinet was unexpectedly bruising for Corbyn, given that he had already decided to give them a free vote to avoid a mass walkout.
The Labour leader had seemed in a strong position at the beginning of the day, having spent the weekend asserting his authority over the parliamentary party by stressing his mandate from the membership. His measured appearances on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, explaining the holes in David Cameron’s case for military action, appeared to be convincing Labour MPs that the crucial arguments had not been made.
External pressure was piled on by activists from Momentum, the grassroots group of Corbyn supporters, followed by the trade unions Unite and Unison, which urged parliamentarians to think again before backing airstrikes.
Corbyn’s final card to play was a survey of members, carried out over the weekend. The results were published just before 1pm on Monday, an hour before the crucial shadow cabinet meeting, showing 75% of those who responded in a sample of 1,900 were against the strikes. By this time, Corbyn had also finally struck an agreement with Tom Watson, the deputy leader, to offer a free vote to MPs as long as Labour party policy was clearly opposed to strikes.
No comments:
Post a Comment