When was there last a war without a cross-party consensus? But that such has come to be seen as necessary is a consequence of the introduction of fixed-term Parliaments.
A General Election is bound to happen on a certain day, meaning that the Government could change in the early hours of the following morning, no matter what was going on in the theatre of war at the same time, and even if the new Government had been elected on a specific policy of ending that war forthwith.
So yes, there does now have to be a a cross-party consensus for a war. There is not one for the intervention in Syria that is also supported by a mere 15 per cent of the population.
When Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party wins the Oldham West and Royton by-election, then the brayers on the Green Benches and on the Internet are going to look very silly indeed.
Of course, David Cameron could seek to foment a coup within the Labour Party by using a Division of the House on this matter to identify the insurgents, whom his media backers could then seek to install at the head of that party well before a 2020 Election four years into a war.
But if there were any realistic chance of that, then he would be doing it, or he would have done it by now.
The fact is that that strategy would depend on the votes of all Conservative MPs. Evidently, those votes have not all been secured.
That, and not anything within the Opposition, ought to be the main news, and the principal subject of analysis.
That, and not anything within the Opposition, ought to be the main news, and the principal subject of analysis.
Brilliant. The BBC is obsessed with the pro-war Labour gobs on sticks, just ignores the anti-war Tories. Keep going, you are doing sterling work.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't stop, even if I wanted to.
DeleteWhere are we, that the Chair of the Labour Backbench Committees on Foreign Policy and Defence are far more pro-war than a heavily Conservative-dominated Select Committee? Here, that's where.