Syrian air strikes: Which way did your MP sway?

IT was the night Britain sent the bombs into Syria and the Conservatives declared war on “peacemaker” Jeremy Corbyn.

With Merseyside’s own MPs almost equally divided on whether or not to deploy British warplanes over Syria, the issue was finally settled with an overwhelming “yes”.

Minutes after the late evening Commons vote (397 for air strikes and 223 against) four Tornado jets were already preparing to take off from Cyprus. Destination: ISIL-held oil fields in Syria, just a few miles from the border with Iraq.

It was as though the Government wanted to set the jets loose before anybody had time to slap a judicial review on to halt the action.

Only time will tell whether the decision was the right one, and whether people will give their Christmas shopping trip to London’s Oxford Street a miss this year, “Y’know, just in case.”

But the dust is far from settled on the political battleground that is Westminster and within the Labour Party, with one Liverpool MP saying he had been horrified by the abuse meted out to colleagues in the last week

But back to yesterday. Labour leader Corbyn seemed rattled, distracted and out of sorts as he delivered his “no bombing” response to Cameron’s Churchillian call to send in the boys (and girls). 

Jeremy Corbyn was heckled and catcalled by the opposite bench during his anti war speech

He was heckled, bullied even, throughout, by a non-stop chorus of catcalling from the Tory benches. This barrel bomb of abuse seemed orchestrated to throw him off his tracks. If it was, it worked and was not Corbyn’s finest hour.

For Hilary Benn it was a different story,  delivering a speech described as one of the finest ever within the walls of the Palace of Westminster. What his father Tony Benn would have made of his son’s contribution can never be known. But if there were any undecided on the Labour benches, Benn Junior’s plea would have helped settle it.

He began with a valiant defence of Corbyn, prompted by David Cameron’s earlier, unapologetic labelling of anti-bombing supporters as “terrorist sympathisers”.

No wing, section or strand of the Labour Party has a monopoly on wisdom or virtue. If we cannot show each other some respect why on Earth should the British public respect us? West Derby MP Stephen Twigg

Benn said: “I would like to say this directly to the Prime Minister: although my right hon friend, the Leader of the Opposition and I will walk into different Division Lobbies tonight, I am proud to speak from the same Dispatch Box as him. He is not a terrorist sympathiser. He is an honest, principled, decent and good man, and I think the Prime Minister must now regret what he said yesterday and his failure to do what he should have done today, which is simply to say, ‘I am sorry.’”

By close of play Corbyn’s authority had been dented, possibly without repair. Will that moment also be seen as Hilary Benn’s marker to take over as Prime Minister in Waiting? The bookies have already set the odds,

Corbyn made clear his opposition to bombing, but more than 60 of his colleagues on the Labour benches – given a free vote – didn’t heed his plea to stick with him.

These included Liverpool Labour MPs Louise Ellman (Riverside); Luciana Berger, (Wavertree); Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood); Angela Eagle (Wallasey). 

Also in the Yes lobby were George Howarth (Knowsley); Frank Field (Birkenhead); Alison McGovern (Wirral South); Conor McGinn, (St Helens North). The Lib Dem Southport MP, John Pugh also gave the thumbs up to the RAF.

Striding through the No-to-bombing lobby were Steve Rotherham, (Walton); Stephen Twigg (West Derby); Peter Dowd (Bootle); Bill Esterson (Sefton Central); Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston); Derek Twigg, (Halton);  Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston); Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West). They were joined by Liverpool born Andy Burnham (Leigh). 

Speaking on his Facebook page, Stephen Twigg (right) said: "Last
Friday West Derby Labour Party discussed Syria and Daesh. It
was a passionate and well-informed discussion. Nobody felt the need to accuse others in the room of being either "terrorist sympathisers" or "warmongers". Everybody recognised the complexity of the issues at hand and respected the very real differences of opinion that exist on this issue. 

"I have been horrified and upset by some of the personal abuse
that has been directed at some of my colleagues in recent days. Decisions about military action are rightly very contentious and arouse real passions (on both sides). However there is a chasm between passion and vitriol."

What some of your local MPs said in the debate:   

 

Alison McGovern (Wirral South, pictured right, voted YES): “I need to be able to believe that the Prime Minister
will stand beside those in the world who will need him tomorrow.
Part of the justification for the strikes is to show our commitment to the coalition against
Daesh and show that we are truly part of the fight, but if the Prime Minister wants my support, he will have to show his commitment to the bigger fight ahead of us.” 

Derek Twigg (Halton, voted NO): “I do not believe the argument that bombing Daesh in Syria will somehow greatly increase the chances of a terrorist attack in the UK, nor the argument that the Government are proposing the indiscriminate bombing of Syrians. Those arguments are both wrong. 

“I am clear that the UN needs to agree to put a huge coalition force in the hundreds of thousands into Syria to stop the civil war and maintain safe areas, while at the same time putting in place a political strategy that is achievable.”

"The Government have not convinced me that there is a wider strategy or that this action has a reasonable chance of success. Instead, I think we will have to gradually up our involvement in a piecemeal way and that we will find ourselves in a much more complex situation, even than Iraq.”

Stephen Twigg  (West Derby, voted NO): “After the Prime Minister’s statement last Thursday, I went back to Liverpool, where I met a Syrian doctor who lives there. He expressed the view of many Syrians living in exile when he said that for them the biggest threat comes from Assad. Indeed, the moderate forces that we seem to be relying on are currently bombed by Assad and by Russia. I fear that the lack of ground forces will limit the effectiveness of airstrikes and that the strategy the Prime Minister set out last week of ISIL-first—in other words, Daesh-first—will have the unintended consequence of strengthening the brutal and murderous Assad regime. For those reasons, I will vote against the Government tonight