Wednesday’s speech had striking similarities to one given in parliament by his socialist father the year after the Gulf War in 1991 – except that Benn senior was mounting an impassioned plea against war.
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Mr McDonnell acknowledged the quality of the shadow foreign secretary’s address, but warned: “It reminded me of Tony Blair’s speech taking us into the Iraq War”.
“We have had a rush of new membership and Jeremy Corbyn hoped this would ignite the grass roots campaign, but there’s been more campaigning against Labour MPs and that will only serve division and disunity”.
“Those are things that Tony, who fought fascism in World War II, would understand”.
Mr Salmond came under fire following a radio interview in which he was asked about Mr Benn’s powerful speech at the end of Wednesday’s debate which many believe played a critical role in persuading Labour MPs to defy Jeremy Corbyn and support Mr Cameron’s motion. I think the reality is that many more children and families will died because of that vote, and that disturbs me greatly. “To say they should be subjected to a witch-hunt or a campaign against them is wrong”.
He said: “They half feel now that the Labour party kind of belongs to them, and they are the arbiters of what is the right thing to do”. A firm line needs to be taken, a code of conduct around social media.
“It wasn’t the SNP who were being most critical of her – it was people within our own party”.
The Bermondsey and Old Southwark MP added that Mr Corbyn should “distance himself” from Momentum “very strongly”.
Spokesperson for the bookmaker, Graham Sharpe, stated: “The intriguing possibility of the two Hil(l)arys leading their countries at the same time has suddenly become more likely as Hilary Benn takes over as favourite to succeed Jeremy Corbyn, while Hillary Clinton is already odds-on favourite to win next year’s US Presidential Election”.
“If you joined the Labour Party and use that sort of language on either side of the argument, you shouldn’t be in the party. But we agreed a free vote because of the sincerely-held differing views in the Parliamentary Labour Party”.
“It’s been a minority”, she said. “She is an excellent MP and she has my support”.
But Labour MP Tristram Hunt called for the party leadership to disown Momentum. “If [he and others] are manoeuvring they are making a crass mistake because none of them will ever be elected leader”.
The House of Commons fell silent as Hilary Benn implored MPs to approve the government’s plan for air strikes on Islamic State jihadists in Syria, to which his party leader Jeremy Corbyn is opposed.
Shadow work and pensions secretary Owen Smith played down the suggestions that Mr Corbyn wanted to get rid of dissenters.
Asked about the threats made to MPs, Mr Wrack said abuse on social media was “unacceptable”, but commonplace.
The speech puts Benn “in pole position to be a future leader” of the party, added McTernan, a critic of Corbyn’s leadership.
“David Davis… said all of these votes should be free votes”.
Kevan Jones says MPs are losing patience with the Labour leader and says “it is not about right or left” political leanings.
Of course, the Commons debate was not about whether we should fight fascism, but about whether dropping bombs on northern Syria would materially assist that fight.
Meanwhile a row was raging within Labour when senior party figures branded Ken Livingstone “disgraceful” for suggesting he would back efforts to deselect some of the 66 MPs who backed airstrikes.
A former shadow minister has called on Jeremy Corbyn to “step back” from the Stop the War Coalition, calling them a “disreputable organisation”.
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It follows Labour’s victory in the Oldham West and Royton by-election, where the party won with a majority of more than 10,000 – despite predictions that voters would turn away from Labour because they didn’t like Mr Corbyn.
