Cameron on Monday only said that the vote could come “in the coming days and weeks”.
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“If we won t act now when our friend and ally France has been struck in this way, then our friends and allies can be forgiven for asking: If not now, when?”
“In particular, the PM did not set out a coherent strategy, co-ordinated through the United Nations, for the defeat of IS”. That report, from a panel on which the Conservatives have a majority, was a warning of the doubts many in Parliament had about strikes.
Cameron’s response comes a day after French lawmakers voted in support of continuing airstrikes in Syria. It said that calls to seek an alliance with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime – a solution favored by Russian Federation – “misunderstands the causes of the problem and would make matters worse”.
“We should work as hard as we can for it but we should be acting now with allies because it is about keeping our own people and our own country safe”.
“We are not deploying British combat forces, we are not going to deploy British combat forces”, Cameron said, adding that past experience in other conflicts showed the presence of Western ground forces would be “counter-productive”.
“Adding British bombs to existing USA and other bombing campaigns will not make the difference in beating ISIS – and we believe it is being pressed exclusively for reasons of political expediency”. When I asked his spokesman whether Benn had been given advance sight of Corbyn’s planned response to the Prime Minister, the spokesman said “no”.
In an early sign that the mood of Parliament is shifting, foreign affairs committee chairman Crispin Blunt told the chamber he now believes Britain’s interests would be best served by joining air strikes.
The Scottish National Party’s leader in Westminster Angus Robertson said that his party’s MPs will not vote for air strikes in Syria unless they are convinced that there is effective ground support and a fully-costed plan for post-war reconstruction. That was for proposed strikes against the forces of President Assad.
London has been carrying out airstrikes against ISIL targets in Iraq since September 2014, but had not as yet extended its campaign to Syria, as Cameron lost a parliamentary vote in 2013. Lawmakers gave their backing to attacks on Iraq.
Mr Corbyn stopped short of saying he would order his MPs to oppose military action in a vote – which could take place as early as next week.
Many Labour frontbenchers want to vote for the bombing raids. If he agrees to back the plan himself, though, he will be attacked by his core supporters.
Cameron adopted an open, conciliatory tone with MPs, taking several hours of questions about the seven-point strategy on Syria he presented.
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Cameron said airstrikes would not increase the already-high risk of an attack in Britain. Cameron replied that the intelligence advice was that the United Kingdom was already near the top of the extremists’ target list.
