In his appeal to Conservative MPs to vote in favour of bombing Syria, Cameron implored his party to stand against “Jeremy Corbyn and a bunch of terrorist sympathisers”. Both France and the USA have urged Britain to join their air campaign in Syria, and Cameron said Britain should not let its allies down. A poll conducted by online research firm YouGov shows that British citizens’ support for military action in Syria has fallen to the lowest level since September 2014, with 48 percent of respondents supporting strikes on Tuesday, compared to 59 percent last week.
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On the Labour side there was widespread dismay at Mr Corbyn’s handling of the issue, following his statement last week that he could not support air strikes – seen by critics as an attempt to pre-empt the shadow cabinet meeting.
“I will be making the arguments and I hope as many members of parliament across all parties will support me as possible”, he said on the eve of the vote.
Syrian President Bashar Assad dismissed the effectiveness of the bombing campaign being waged by the U.S.-led coalition against IS in his country, saying the airstrikes by his longtime ally, Russia, that started September 30 have accomplished more.
Corbyn called Cameron’s Syrian military proposal an “ill-thought-out rush to war”.
“It is important symbolically, useful operationally, but not transformative”.
This time around, Peter reports, Cameron is confident he’ll gain the support of a majority of Parliament.
Britain now has eight Tornado jets at a Royal Air Force air base in Cyprus.
Opposition Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, looks at papers sitting centre right opposite Cameron, who opposes any expansion of Britain’s military role.
A House of Commons debate got underway at 1pm on Wednesday with a vote set to be taken at about 10pm.
Mr Corbyn disputed Mr Cameron’s claim about ground troops, saying it was “quite clear there are no such forces” and only extremists would take advantage of the strikes against IS.
“The question is this”, Cameron said as he kicked off a 10 1/2-hour debate in the House of Commons.
The government want to extend United Kingdom air strikes into Syria from Iraq, targeting IS in Raqqa.
The Conservative chairman of the Commons Defence Committee, Julian Lewis, said that in place of the “dodgy dossiers” used by Tony Blair’s administration to justify war in Iraq in 2003, “we now have bogus battalions of moderate fighters”.
Nevertheless, Mr Cameron – who has always said he would only go back to Parliament if he was sure of winning – clearly now believes that he has the numbers in the bag to offset any Tory rebels still opposed to intervening.
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The committee has cast doubt on the legality of the move, its effectiveness in the absence of reliable allies on the ground and its usefulness in the context of finding a diplomatic solution to the crisis.
