But while his closest ally, shadow chancellor John McDonnell, has expressed a preference for a free vote that would reduce tensions, Mr Corbyn has seemed unwilling to go down that path.
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Shadow global development secretary Diane Abbott insisted the shadow cabinet was not entitled to vote down the leader and said she was confident they would come to the “right decision”.
“The problem about a free vote is it hands victory to Cameron of these air strikes, it hands victory to him on a plate”.
He said: “I feel there are some people who haven’t quite got used to the idea that the party is in a different place”.
The fact that we should take the latest figures with a pinch of salt is compounded by a recent YouGov report which revealed only 58 per cent of Labour members were opposed to air strikes in Syria.
The Labour leader is set for a showdown with his own shadow cabinet today amid warnings several members of his top team could resign if he refuses to allow them a free vote to back David Cameron’s call for military action.
The dilemma posed by the proposed vote has brought existing rifts in the LPP to a head, with party leader Jeremy Corbyn opposing intervention, and prominent members of the LPP – Shadow Foreign Minister Hilary Benn and Deputy Leader Tom Watson, for example – supporting it.
Most Labour lawmakers did not support Corbyn’s bid for the leadership but he was backed by an overwhelming majority of grassroots party members.
Last week Mr Cameron said launching air strikes against Jihadists in Syria will make Britain “safer”.
She told the BBC: “Frankly, I think the threat of mass resignations has been exaggerated but we will have to see”.
“The thought that some Labour MPs might be prepared to play intra-party politics over an issue such as this will sicken all decent people”, he said.
In the letter, Corbyn said there must be “full and adequate” time for a debate before a vote was taken.
“We’d like to have a vote for military action but we’ve got to keep building the case”, Fallon told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show.
“We’re saying … don’t do this, don’t make the same mistake you made with the Iraq war”.
However, Corbyn asserted his authority by reminding MPs of his large mandate and making clear that he alone would decide whether to whip them to vote against extending airstrikes on IS strongholds in Sryia. Some of his colleagues, however, have said they support military intervention in Syria.
Privy councillors from Labour and other parties are being briefed, but the spokesman declined to say whether these discussions would include further details of the composition of the 70,000 “moderate” Syrian fighters who the PM has suggested are on the ground – something Mr Corbyn has doubts about.
He said: “There are wide views on this particular issue, it’s an incredibly emotive issue”.
The veteran left-winger, who has been a serial rebel through his Commons career, said: “I understand dissent, I understand disagreement from leadership”.
“I do not know whether there will be a free vote on Syria or not”.
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Hollande said Monday that France will intensify its airstrikes against the militants in Syria and that the country is working with Cameron toward a political solution to end the civil war there that started in 2011.
