Fallout from the prime minister's crushing parliamentary defeat last week will be complex, but why did he risk all as it grew clearer he could not muster support for intervention in Syria?
The Conservatives had enjoyed a very good summer holiday. Apart from some unfortunate photographs of the prime minister in his trunks on a Cornish beach, all had gone rather well. The economy seemed on the mend, and the Tory party, by its standards, was united. Ed Miliband was in trouble as Labour MPs grumbled about his leadership. As a result, the heat was off David Cameron.
But within hours of parliament being recalled early on Thursday to debate Britain's response to chemical weapons attacks in Syria, things were reverting to type. A former Tory minister of high standing who looked very well rested, threw his head back in disdain as he prowled the Commons. "The thing is that these guys can be very lazy," he said of Cameron, mocking the idea that the prime minister had "cut short" his holiday to rally support for war. "He had an idea on the beach. He thought it would be like Libya and that he would get the same support. But Syria is different. These guys don't think these things through."
As MPs chatted earnestly, heads turned as Cameron strode through the Commons cloisters at 11.55am holding a piece of paper and looking straight ahead. He took trouble to say "hi" and namecheck Tory MPs he passed, then glanced at his notes. He had to appear composed, and get his message right. When he entered a heaving committee room to address the parliamentary party, there was a brief banging of tables – the customary gesture of solidarity. Behind closed doors Cameron talked about video footage of chemical weapons atrocities in Damascus and of the need for a firm response. Without one, he said, President Bashar al-Assad would feel emboldened to unleash even more horrors on his people.
But for some of Cameron's backbenchers it was too late. The former Welsh secretary Cheryl Gillan, who had said an attack on Syria would be an "absolute disaster", left early, her mind unchanged. A senior minister said Cameron had done well, but remarked that his constituency association was "very hostile". Party members were haunted by Iraq and Afghanistan.
That afternoon, before the Commons vote, Cameron held meetings with anxious backbenchers, who asked for more reassurance, particularly that no British bases would be used by US forces this weekend before a second Commons vote had been taken to authorise UK action. But several were left unconvinced. Cameron, who had assured Barack Obama last weekend that he would be with him in any action, was finding his party and the country, as well as Miliband's Labour,
The prime minister's worst fears were realised at 10pm that evening. The government had been defeated by 285 votes to 272, even on a watered-down motion that did not commit the country to war. Thirty Tories had rebelled, as had nine Liberal Democrats. Miliband, victorious but stunned, wore the same blank expression he had shown when he snatched the Labour leadership from his brother, David, on an autumn afternoon in 2010. On Thursday night, he had pulled off an extraordinary victory. But as then, at what cost? What might be the repercussions for him, his party, the country – the world? How would this most extraordinary of decisions by parliament, one that could affect British foreign policy and relations with the United States for years to come, play out?
One thing Miliband could be sure of was that in the heat of the moment he had dealt the most humiliating blow to the prime minister. Cameron had lost control of his party; Miliband had united his. How could the PM accuse Miliband of "weak leadership" in the Commons when he had recalled parliament early to win its backing for military action, only to lose it? It was the first time a British government had suffered such a fate on an issue of war and peace since 1782.
More humiliating still, how could Cameron ever again convince Washington that the UK would be with the US when he had so spectacularly failed to deliver? And how, in the councils of Europe, could he still claim to be the EU's bridge with Washington?
Last Sunday, the country woke to news that the prime minister and US president had spoken for 40 minutes the previous afternoon and were intent on military action against Assad. Both were satisfied that the Syrian leader was directly responsible for a chemical weapons attack on his people on 21 August, one that the charity Médecins Sans Frontières reported had left 3,600 men, women and children displaying neurotoxic symptoms. Of those, it said 355 had died.
But last Saturday night there was no confirmation that parliament would be called to debate or vote on British involvement. That confirmation came from the prime minister two days later, on Tuesday, via Twitter. Meanwhile, public anxiety and a desire to avoid another rush to war were building. A poll by the Sun newspaper on Tuesday found the public two to one against military action. MPs called constituency association meetings and took to social media to canvass opinion. Labour whips found MPs reporting very strong opposition. At least one member of the shadow cabinet made it known that he would resign if Miliband, who had not ruled out supporting military strikes, backed Cameron.
Sarah Wollaston, the rebel Tory MP for Totnes, said her office was unable to keep up with emails from constituents who feared, like her, a repeat of Iraq and Afghanistan, and a wider war in the Middle East. On Thursday morning she tweeted the results of her canvassing: "After asking my constituents views: no intervention 507, intervention 21, intervene with UN backing 32."
A gathering rebellion at Westminster was being bolstered through social media. On the Tory right, something else was going on. Eurosceptics were stressing the need for parliament to hold the executive to account and reject military action in line with the people's wishes. Euroscepticism was morphing into romantic isolationism. On Tuesday, the anti-EU Tory MEP Daniel Hannan tweeted: "Let me get this straight. We dislike the use of gas because it kills indiscriminately. So we'll respond by raining missiles on Syria?" On Wednesday he said: "If MPs voted against bombing Syria, and the executive respected their decision, what a triumph it would be for representative democracy."
With the Daily Mail increasingly strident in its anti-war editorials – it said on Thursday that MPs had a "moral duty" to vote against war if they had even the slightest doubts about it – Cameron appeared to be losing the battle for public opinion. Knowing there was an unpredictable group of around 30 MPs in his own party, and several Lib Dems who were anti-war, he had, therefore, to try to keep Miliband on side to avoid defeat. On Tuesday and Wednesday the Labour leader and the shadow foreign secretary, Douglas Alexander, had two meetings with the prime minister and a series of phone calls, which grew less friendly.
While Downing Street insists that Miliband was "playing politics" and was "buggering around moving the goalposts" by switching from sounding broadly in favour of military action on Tuesday, to his eventual position of opposing even a diluted noncommittal motion on Wednesday, Labour sees it differently. It says Cameron's "Flashman" approach, his anger and his stubborness, coupled with a determination to "rush to war" before weapons inspectors had reported and the UN route had been exhausted, were to blame for the prime minister's failure to build public and political support. In one phone call on Wednesday, Cameron accused Miliband of "letting down America" and "siding with [Sergei] Lavrov", the Russian foreign minister, an ally of Assad. Behind the scenes, worse insults flew around. One Downing Street source told the Times: "No 10 and the Foreign Office think Miliband is a fucking cunt and a copper-bottomed shit." This weekend, as the US prepares to launch military strikes against Syria without the British, not even Cameron's staunchest supporters would argue that he has had anything other than a pretty disastrous week. In domestic politics, Miliband's authority within his party is enhanced for now, and some say he has gone some way towards laying the party's ghost over Iraq in the course of less than a week.
Cameron's deputy, Nick Clegg, faces awkward questions in his own party, which prides itself on having opposed war in Iraq, after he tried and failed to rally support behind the PM.
Internationally, the British government looks diminished. The US secretary of state, John Kerry, went out of his way to praise the French as his country's "oldest ally", ready to join America in confronting the "thug and murderer" Assad. But Kerry made no mention of Britain.
Cameron had said in the Commons on Thursday that the issue of whether Britain should go to war was a "matter of judgment". But when it came to it, parliament, reflecting the views of the people, had not trusted his.
An Opinium/Observer poll taken between Wednesday and Friday shows how far short he fell in swinging the public behind his arguments. Only 24% of voters supported military action; 60% opposed it. Among Conservatives, support was 34%, less than among Lib Dems, with 36% supportive. Among all voters, 59% said the UK's recent involvement in conflicts abroad such as Iraq and Afghanistan had made them more wary of foreign intervention, despite the prime minister's repeated insistence that Syria was a profoundly different case. If Cameron had accurately gauged the public mood before recalling parliament, which is doubtful, he must have known that his task of persuasion last week would be huge.
What many MPs will be asking today is why neither he nor the foreign secretary, William Hague, were able to make the kind of "clear and compelling case" that Kerry made for US military action. Why, if UK relations with Washington were so close, and the UK had known it was facing a crucial parliamentary vote, was Cameron not given access to new, higher casualty figures from US intelligence, cited by Kerry? British official figures used by the government had the number of Syrians who had died at 350 while Kerry said on Friday the figure was 1,429, including 350 children.
This week, the extent of the political and diplomatic fallout will become clearer. The blame game will continue at what is bound to be an explosive session of prime minister's questions on Wednesday. Cameron will face a tricky test in attacking Miliband over Syria, not least because parliament backed the leader of the opposition, not the prime minister.
Then on Thursday, he will be forced to face the international ramifications when he sits down at the G20 summit in St Petersburg with President Obama and tries to put back together the "special relationship" that events of recent days have placed in serious question. Reported by guardian.co.uk 36 minutes ago.
The Conservatives had enjoyed a very good summer holiday. Apart from some unfortunate photographs of the prime minister in his trunks on a Cornish beach, all had gone rather well. The economy seemed on the mend, and the Tory party, by its standards, was united. Ed Miliband was in trouble as Labour MPs grumbled about his leadership. As a result, the heat was off David Cameron.
But within hours of parliament being recalled early on Thursday to debate Britain's response to chemical weapons attacks in Syria, things were reverting to type. A former Tory minister of high standing who looked very well rested, threw his head back in disdain as he prowled the Commons. "The thing is that these guys can be very lazy," he said of Cameron, mocking the idea that the prime minister had "cut short" his holiday to rally support for war. "He had an idea on the beach. He thought it would be like Libya and that he would get the same support. But Syria is different. These guys don't think these things through."
As MPs chatted earnestly, heads turned as Cameron strode through the Commons cloisters at 11.55am holding a piece of paper and looking straight ahead. He took trouble to say "hi" and namecheck Tory MPs he passed, then glanced at his notes. He had to appear composed, and get his message right. When he entered a heaving committee room to address the parliamentary party, there was a brief banging of tables – the customary gesture of solidarity. Behind closed doors Cameron talked about video footage of chemical weapons atrocities in Damascus and of the need for a firm response. Without one, he said, President Bashar al-Assad would feel emboldened to unleash even more horrors on his people.
But for some of Cameron's backbenchers it was too late. The former Welsh secretary Cheryl Gillan, who had said an attack on Syria would be an "absolute disaster", left early, her mind unchanged. A senior minister said Cameron had done well, but remarked that his constituency association was "very hostile". Party members were haunted by Iraq and Afghanistan.
That afternoon, before the Commons vote, Cameron held meetings with anxious backbenchers, who asked for more reassurance, particularly that no British bases would be used by US forces this weekend before a second Commons vote had been taken to authorise UK action. But several were left unconvinced. Cameron, who had assured Barack Obama last weekend that he would be with him in any action, was finding his party and the country, as well as Miliband's Labour,
The prime minister's worst fears were realised at 10pm that evening. The government had been defeated by 285 votes to 272, even on a watered-down motion that did not commit the country to war. Thirty Tories had rebelled, as had nine Liberal Democrats. Miliband, victorious but stunned, wore the same blank expression he had shown when he snatched the Labour leadership from his brother, David, on an autumn afternoon in 2010. On Thursday night, he had pulled off an extraordinary victory. But as then, at what cost? What might be the repercussions for him, his party, the country – the world? How would this most extraordinary of decisions by parliament, one that could affect British foreign policy and relations with the United States for years to come, play out?
One thing Miliband could be sure of was that in the heat of the moment he had dealt the most humiliating blow to the prime minister. Cameron had lost control of his party; Miliband had united his. How could the PM accuse Miliband of "weak leadership" in the Commons when he had recalled parliament early to win its backing for military action, only to lose it? It was the first time a British government had suffered such a fate on an issue of war and peace since 1782.
More humiliating still, how could Cameron ever again convince Washington that the UK would be with the US when he had so spectacularly failed to deliver? And how, in the councils of Europe, could he still claim to be the EU's bridge with Washington?
Last Sunday, the country woke to news that the prime minister and US president had spoken for 40 minutes the previous afternoon and were intent on military action against Assad. Both were satisfied that the Syrian leader was directly responsible for a chemical weapons attack on his people on 21 August, one that the charity Médecins Sans Frontières reported had left 3,600 men, women and children displaying neurotoxic symptoms. Of those, it said 355 had died.
But last Saturday night there was no confirmation that parliament would be called to debate or vote on British involvement. That confirmation came from the prime minister two days later, on Tuesday, via Twitter. Meanwhile, public anxiety and a desire to avoid another rush to war were building. A poll by the Sun newspaper on Tuesday found the public two to one against military action. MPs called constituency association meetings and took to social media to canvass opinion. Labour whips found MPs reporting very strong opposition. At least one member of the shadow cabinet made it known that he would resign if Miliband, who had not ruled out supporting military strikes, backed Cameron.
Sarah Wollaston, the rebel Tory MP for Totnes, said her office was unable to keep up with emails from constituents who feared, like her, a repeat of Iraq and Afghanistan, and a wider war in the Middle East. On Thursday morning she tweeted the results of her canvassing: "After asking my constituents views: no intervention 507, intervention 21, intervene with UN backing 32."
A gathering rebellion at Westminster was being bolstered through social media. On the Tory right, something else was going on. Eurosceptics were stressing the need for parliament to hold the executive to account and reject military action in line with the people's wishes. Euroscepticism was morphing into romantic isolationism. On Tuesday, the anti-EU Tory MEP Daniel Hannan tweeted: "Let me get this straight. We dislike the use of gas because it kills indiscriminately. So we'll respond by raining missiles on Syria?" On Wednesday he said: "If MPs voted against bombing Syria, and the executive respected their decision, what a triumph it would be for representative democracy."
With the Daily Mail increasingly strident in its anti-war editorials – it said on Thursday that MPs had a "moral duty" to vote against war if they had even the slightest doubts about it – Cameron appeared to be losing the battle for public opinion. Knowing there was an unpredictable group of around 30 MPs in his own party, and several Lib Dems who were anti-war, he had, therefore, to try to keep Miliband on side to avoid defeat. On Tuesday and Wednesday the Labour leader and the shadow foreign secretary, Douglas Alexander, had two meetings with the prime minister and a series of phone calls, which grew less friendly.
While Downing Street insists that Miliband was "playing politics" and was "buggering around moving the goalposts" by switching from sounding broadly in favour of military action on Tuesday, to his eventual position of opposing even a diluted noncommittal motion on Wednesday, Labour sees it differently. It says Cameron's "Flashman" approach, his anger and his stubborness, coupled with a determination to "rush to war" before weapons inspectors had reported and the UN route had been exhausted, were to blame for the prime minister's failure to build public and political support. In one phone call on Wednesday, Cameron accused Miliband of "letting down America" and "siding with [Sergei] Lavrov", the Russian foreign minister, an ally of Assad. Behind the scenes, worse insults flew around. One Downing Street source told the Times: "No 10 and the Foreign Office think Miliband is a fucking cunt and a copper-bottomed shit." This weekend, as the US prepares to launch military strikes against Syria without the British, not even Cameron's staunchest supporters would argue that he has had anything other than a pretty disastrous week. In domestic politics, Miliband's authority within his party is enhanced for now, and some say he has gone some way towards laying the party's ghost over Iraq in the course of less than a week.
Cameron's deputy, Nick Clegg, faces awkward questions in his own party, which prides itself on having opposed war in Iraq, after he tried and failed to rally support behind the PM.
Internationally, the British government looks diminished. The US secretary of state, John Kerry, went out of his way to praise the French as his country's "oldest ally", ready to join America in confronting the "thug and murderer" Assad. But Kerry made no mention of Britain.
Cameron had said in the Commons on Thursday that the issue of whether Britain should go to war was a "matter of judgment". But when it came to it, parliament, reflecting the views of the people, had not trusted his.
An Opinium/Observer poll taken between Wednesday and Friday shows how far short he fell in swinging the public behind his arguments. Only 24% of voters supported military action; 60% opposed it. Among Conservatives, support was 34%, less than among Lib Dems, with 36% supportive. Among all voters, 59% said the UK's recent involvement in conflicts abroad such as Iraq and Afghanistan had made them more wary of foreign intervention, despite the prime minister's repeated insistence that Syria was a profoundly different case. If Cameron had accurately gauged the public mood before recalling parliament, which is doubtful, he must have known that his task of persuasion last week would be huge.
What many MPs will be asking today is why neither he nor the foreign secretary, William Hague, were able to make the kind of "clear and compelling case" that Kerry made for US military action. Why, if UK relations with Washington were so close, and the UK had known it was facing a crucial parliamentary vote, was Cameron not given access to new, higher casualty figures from US intelligence, cited by Kerry? British official figures used by the government had the number of Syrians who had died at 350 while Kerry said on Friday the figure was 1,429, including 350 children.
This week, the extent of the political and diplomatic fallout will become clearer. The blame game will continue at what is bound to be an explosive session of prime minister's questions on Wednesday. Cameron will face a tricky test in attacking Miliband over Syria, not least because parliament backed the leader of the opposition, not the prime minister.
Then on Thursday, he will be forced to face the international ramifications when he sits down at the G20 summit in St Petersburg with President Obama and tries to put back together the "special relationship" that events of recent days have placed in serious question. Reported by guardian.co.uk 36 minutes ago.