Meanwhile

PM Calls Syria Airstrikes Vote For Wednesday

David Cameron is accused of "bulldozing" the issue through Parliament after rejecting Jeremy Corbyn's call for a two-day debate.

http://news.sky.com/story/1597291/pm...-for-wednesday

That sounds ok to me.
He has had long enough to write letters and wring his hands.
Get in with it.

What a surprise, I'm surprised he called a vote at all.

'Numerous reports claim that Russia has dropped deadly white phosphorus on civilians in northwest Syria, as its intensive bombing campaign against ISIS continues.
The chemical weapon is banned under the Geneva Convention, because it is highly toxic and can burn through flesh and bone.
White phosphorus, an incendiary also known as WP, is used by armies to illuminate targets during the night or as a smokescreen during the day.
Shocking images posted to Twitter show the sky allegedly filled with the potentially deadly weapon, as it rains down on the de-facto capital of ISIS, Raqqa.

But while Raqqa may be an ISIS stronghold, activists on the ground claim that civilians were caught up in airstrike, which was described as a ‘war crime’.
Human rights organisations have claimed that Russian airstrikes have killed more civilians than ISIS fighters.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...2e8e612ce4b96b

So now from those headlines,if this goes pear shaped and is a disaster,Corbyn and Labour will likely get a hefty part of the blame for now enabling the supporting the action by a number of Labour MPs.

How many have said it should be a free vote for MPs yet not a single bit of condemnation against Cameron for not giving his MPs a free vote.

Honestly,you couldn't make it up.

Anyway, this will get passed obviously now,on balance I still just about support the action and yes the PM in his efforts to deal with this,I just hope we do hear this week more clarity as to what we will be doing, how far we will be going, that his hoped for regime change is 'not' still his agenda too but more importantly exactly and clearly what his end strategy is as to the aftermath of what may be termed any success.

All things he failed to satisfy in his speech to the Commons last week.

Jeremy Corbyn has granted Labour MPs a free vote on UK air strikes in Syria.

Mr Corbyn had wanted Labour to oppose air strikes, but was forced to back down by his shadow cabinet.

David Cameron later said there would be a Commons debate and vote on Wednesday, saying he believed there was growing parliamentary support for action.

BBC chief political correspondent Vicki Young said she was told Mr Corbyn was given a "thorough kicking" at the meeting with his shadow cabinet.

He had previously suggested he wanted to agree a united position within his shadow cabinet and for Labour to approach the question "as a party". The free vote means Labour MPs will not be ordered to vote with the leadership.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34967024

It;s insane to me that he has to "grant" a free vote.

all MP's should ALWAYS BE FREE TO VOTE HOWEVER THEY LIKE. THEY ARE ELECTED BY THE EPOPLE, NOT BY JEREMY CORBAN. WHAT A SELF-RIGHTEOUS prick to think he can "grant them" the right to vote freely. wtf is wrong with the labour party???

This is as always a gross oversimplification Kirk. I'm sure it makes things easier to process and opinions easier to form to stick to things like this as dogmatic "truth" but the waters are so much murkier. We've been "at war" with the Middle East for a thousand years. Everyone "side" has blood on their hands.

And again, as always, I'm not defending ISIS. ISIS are awful; they are disgusting. They deliberately target innocents because they can't take on anyone with the means to fight back. They have more fresh blood - or at least more fresh innocent blood - on their hands thand anyone else currently. They are a problem, on that needs to be taken care of (but won't be, in my opinion as you know. We will fail spectacularly to eradicate them.)

So yea... who started "this" war? There's no snappy one-liner answer to that. You could write a thesis on it. Are ISIS the good guys? No, they are metaphorical "monsters". Who are the good guys? That's where it gets messy. There are "worse guys" and "slightly better guys". There AREN'T any good guys. It's not Star Wars; it's the real world where everyone falls somewhere between "completely awful" and "quite sh*t".

The Conservative MPs are not having a free vote for their MPs,David Cameron has not granted that.
A free vote has to be dictated by the govt when putting the motion forward,such as when we have a vote on the death penalty.
Or the leader/hierarchy of the Party have to give a free vote on certain divisive issues,to their MPs which Corbyn has and Cameron has not.

That is sadly, our out of date and really non representative parliamentary procedure in the UK.
We will be getting a true reading now of how the Labour MPs see this as to action now but the Conservative party will be a forced whip vote.
Any Conservative MP who really wanted to vote against this, has to weigh up does he want to lose the privileges and possible prospects of advancement in the party, so many will not be able to vote with their conscience.
Unlike now the labour MPs who can.

For me, every vote for action as to intervention, conflict or war should always be a free vote scenario for all MPs of all Parties.
So I am in full agreement with you on that.

No wonder our country is not Great Britain as it was,it was once a proud and brave country ,now , we are just expected to bend over and take the hits from all corners of the world, because we 'don't want to fight' no one WANTS to fight ,but sometimes you have to treat like with like.

It is sometimes the case that when we take the fight to the Middle East particularly,such as Iraq and Libya that we actually end up making things worse not better, that is why some people, myself included, hesitate and think before sending more parents sons and daughters to their deaths now.
Especially in very rushed and badly planned strategies, that is if we even have a strategy at all that will make things better at all.

I would just about support the PM and the action now but I want to hear a load more that is more clarified,quantified and qualified as to the action we will be involved in and what our plans are for the end mess that will need sorting out.
Nothing of which I have heard much of, can you enlighten me please as to what the PMs end plans are for the mess that will be left for instance.
You are someone I massively respect so convince me on what we should and will be doing as to that end mess for instance from all you know.
Because I haven't a clue what the PMs plans are on that one.

If the people elect someone to represent them in the parliament, that representative should vote however they personally feel or how they feel their constituency would want them to vote. but just following on party lines even if it doesn't match with their own personal opinion or the opinion of their constituency that elected them, seems insane to me. and it's a total betrayal to the democratic process.

its how governments work though, you identify with a political party, and are also voted in because of that allegiance.

However, if the subject is a matter of conscience, like the decision on going to war, abortion, the death penalty etc., whether we remain or exit the EU, it should be a free vote

The simple simon salt-of-the-earth guy in the pub who starts throwing his fists around when a gang is hassling people is not "brave", he's stupid. Anyone can throw a haymaker. Believing that it's better to plan, and fight smart, than to react with blunt force, is not cowardly.

not in the US. democrats and republicans cross party lines all the time. there are some of democrats who are against tax increases, and there are some republicans who are pro-abortion. every vote in the US congress is a free vote, yes their party tries to influence their vote, but in the end it is always a free vote, and it never is directly down party lines in the US.

Truth is we can't guarantee what will happen in the long run and there's not much point in trying to draw up a neat little itinerary of how things should go. In part that's because it won't depend on us that much: we are going to be a relatively minor partner in this coalition and are not going to decisively shape Syria's future on a military or a political level. We can't conjure up a political settlement now because that is going to be an ongoing process that will require prolonged discussions and negotiations between both Russia, Western powers, regional partners and, like it or not, the Syrian government and probably some opposition groups as well. But there can be no political settlement without IS being defeated militarily so that has to be the priority right now. I think the government are deluding themselves when they talk about 70,000 'moderates' and I think Cameron's message is quite incoherent but I also think this vote is more about the general principle of whether we are involved in the international response to ISIS or we aren't. If we are not then there really is no point in talking about political settlements in Syria or long-term plans because we are not going to play any part in that if we leave the messy and uncomfortable action to the US, Russia, France etc. while we stand by and watch.

That's the crux of it. I would add that there is zero point in us taking action in Iraq if we are not doing the same in Syria. The ISIS state doesn't respect the Iraq/Syria border. They don't suddenly behave themselves in Syria.

Like it or not, in terms of an outside influence, Russia is one of the main drivers, and the USA is a minor player. We need to accept that if we are going to tackle ISIS

eggggsactly. For some reason, Corbyn thinks in order to engage militarily, there must be some GARUNTEE that everything will go EXACTLY according to plan. he can't even make things perfect in his own party, a stupid beurocratic political party, but expects the military to give garuntee's things will go perfectly? He's an idiot. He's a disgrace. He's a hypocrite.

He holds everyone else to a higher standard than he holds himself to.

Seriously MTVN; "we are not going to decisively shape Syria's future on a military or a political level."? No of course we're not... because no one is. Because it doesn't work. Because it is not possible. People's memories CANNOT be this short. Neither we, not the US, nor any other of these countries have ever successfully shaped the future of any country and yet we keep bloody trying over and over again. This is serious deja-vú. We were so sure that we could successfully mould Iraq into a democracy, everyone was so bloody proud of themselves for about 5 minutes... and look at Iraq today. Just... look.

I guess we do shape it, in a way, much as an unskilled pottery student might "shape" a lump of clay not into a vase but into amorphous blob of chaotic nothingness. We will wreck Syria and then, like a phoenix from the ashes, ISIS under yet another name will rise up more hateful than ever.

I am bewildered that people can't see this coming. It's like when you start watching a sequel movie and you've figured out the twist in the first 15 minutes, and then at the end when it happens, the guy next to you is like ":omgno: did NOT see that coming", and you're like "...eh? It's exactly the same twist as the first film!"

:shrug:

My thoughts are an amalgamation of these posts...

Considering there is no plans of regime change on the table.What mess do you forsee by removing ISIS from the equation?

Assad is already killing the Syrian people and blowing his own towns and cities to pieces.Would you rebuild a city and wait for Assad to destroy it again?

Does it make sense that we are currently fighting ISIS in Iraq but cannot follow them into Syria when they flee or we can't hit them at their heart in Raqqa?

Should we not support our allies in France after the devastating attack in Paris as we would hope they would us?

Should we not take some responsibility for our own security rather than letting our allies do it for us?

These are the reasons that i whole heartedly support airstrikes against ISIS.

They should be able to I agree,
However in the UK any manifesto policy has to be supported on party lines.
The problem with that is,that in the manifesto the fine detail of policy is more often than not very vague and not fully outlined.

This action as to Syria was not in the Conservatives manifesto, therefore the MPs of the govt and indeed all of the Commons should have been a free vote.
Now this PM wants to limit the debate to a day, this week, now in an almighty rush to get it through.

I agree with MTVN, it is hard to work out strategies as to end results normally, however we are now well versed with Middle east intervention and have made bad mistakes in at least 2 areas.
So we should at the very least have learned something from that and have some basic even plan for the aftermath.
That can be explained to us to convince us we are not charging in again just hoping things will turn out right in the end.

let's see what the PM says this week but I hope he doesn't come out with the nonsense of 70,000 moderates fighting there that we should support, the truth is as with Libya, we haven't a clue how many 'moderates' are there and those we assisted in Libya turned out to be worse or at least certainly not better than what was there before.

Before I expected anyone's sons and daughters to go off to war in the Middle east again, I would prefer to see at least some assurances, we have some plans and ideas of what we expect and what to do in the end to rebuild the area too afterwards.

Furthermore,public opinion may have tipped into support for this action at present, however if it all goes wrong and people start coming home in body bags again,then that opinion, since is highly fickle and volatile, will disappear in a flash.

I cannot however disagree with you that our parliamentary system needs a shake up and with more Parties represented in Parliament now,there does need to be a shift to more consensus politics and constituency based politics.
Rather than the whip style of politics where men and women end up becoming more like voting robots rather than people with minds and feelings.

Well it's just as silly to expect every intervention to be a carbon copy of the previous one. I've always opposed our involvement in the Middle East before and not to be smug but you can look at my posts in the run up to the Libya bombing where I did say that forcing the overthrow of Gaddafi would lead to chaos and it did. What we have right now is different for several reasons. Previous interventions were generally about forcing regime change and overhauling the state system: this one would not be. There is an international consensus on this right across the UN: that's something we've never had before. We have powers as diverse as France, the US, Russia, Iran and even the Saudis united against IS (I know that this is pretty murky in the case of Saudi Arabia and some other countries but the potential of a united response is there). And finally, ISIS are a lot different to any previous organisation. They are not Al Qaeda reborn, they're a different monster altogether. They're not an underground, guerilla force, they control a lot of territory and do operate as a state in a fairly conventional way which means that there is a lot that we can do to combat them. You might not defeat the ideology but you can defeat the way in which it operates and manifests itself.

I support action against IS, I would if I were an MP with a very heavy heart likely vote for this action.
Once I heard some solid assurances from this PM, not his Party, most of them are as in the dark as we are as to his planned strategy.

I want to hear him say he will work with all those in the action in Syria, his still hostility to Russia makes him come across as if his agenda once there will be very different.
2 years ago 'all' he wanted was Assad gone,now really my belief is we need to actually work with him to get rid of IS.
Much as in the Russian ideal.

Are you convinced, the PM will take that on board totally,because I am not and the mess could be with the Nations involved in action in Syria the mess could be those nations ending up causing problems for the others.
If that happened,what an almighty mess that would then be and leave too.
I have heard not a thing to re-assure me on that one either.

People are just thinking 'war is war' and comparing this with Iraq and Libya without looking at the details.Syria is a totally different ball game.We are not currently planning on regime change.That would more than likely be an impossibility with Russia building air bases in Syria and backing Assad.This is about destroying an evil terrorist organisation and stopping them increasing the borders of their self made state which is currently crossing the borders of Syria and Iraq and growing like a tumour.They will not stop trying to expand their new territory which knows no borders unless the world stops them.We have an important role to play in this and should support our neighbours in trying to remove this cancer.