The Independent has reported that Corbyn is “understood to be considering calling an emergency meeting of Labour’s ruling body, the National Executive Committee, (NEC), to change official policy-making the party explicitly anti-war” and “has been consulting Labour MPs to see whether they will back a “proposition” laid in the Commons stating that “the Government has not made its case” for extending air strikes”.
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Organisers said they were expecting around 5,000 people to join the rally in London, while smaller protests were being staged at 20 locations across the country including Bristol, Coventry, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Swansea and Norwich.
If only pro-Corbyn members received an email, or if anyone could fill in the form asking for feedback then the party has not received a representative sample of Labour views.
The Prime Minister’s decision to go to the House came after a tumultuous meeting of the shadow cabinet agreed that Labour MPs should be given a free vote – something party leader Jeremy Corbyn had previously opposed.
“All these points will be made in discussions that we will be having with members”, Mr Cameron said.
Mr Murray told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme: ” I don’t think the case has been made because I don’t think the bombing of Syria will make any difference to the position of Isil/Daesh”.
If Corbyn does impose a three-line whip and try to make Labour MPs vote against air strikes, Honeyman predicted that some of his frontbench team could quit.
He said: “The problem that I think Jeremy has got, the problem that the leader of the opposition has, is that he has never abided by the discipline of the leader or of the shadow cabinet”.
In a defiant performance, Mr Corbyn dismissed intelligence advice that IS was using its territory in Syria to prepare terror atrocities against Britain, arguing that “those attacks could be planned anywhere”.
However, Corbyn’s Labour Party, which has not announced its position on Prime Minister David Cameron’s plans, is publicly divided on the issue.
Dozens of Labour MPs are thought to support air strikes, including a majority of the shadow cabinet, and imposing a whip could trigger a wave of resignations.
However, it is taking part in airstrikes against IS in Iraq, BBC reported.
The gulf between Labour’s anti-war clique and the rest of its MPs was highlighted yesterday when Ken Livingstone said that British troops were “discredited”.
Some Labour frontbenchers have hinted that they might resign if they are not given a free vote, with Lord Falconer saying he hope resignations could be avoided.
Rather than ignoring this recent history by joining the long list of countries that have bombed Syria in the previous year we urge the government to stop arming reactionary and aggressive regimes like Saudi Arabia and Qatar that sponsor terrorist groups and look for political solutions as the only viable way to end the conflict. Because I don’t think there is a convincing enough plan about what happens next after that.
However Mr Corbyn’s close allies were last night talking up the likelihood that he would face down dissent among the shadow cabinet and demand MPs oppose the war.
“I fear we may be playing right into what they want – bombing more civilians and therefore helping them recruit more desperate young men with no other way in responding in their grief than by fighting back”.
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He is set to make a decision on whether to allow his Labour colleagues a free vote when it comes before Parliament.
