Today's Update on The Waugh Zone is Titled: MR WHIPPY?

* Paul Waugh

by Pau Waugh| Politics

Today is a huge, huge day for Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party, as the leader meets both his Shadow Cabinet and then the PLP to discuss Syria. Will he use his responses from party members to impose a three-line whip to oppose Cameron? 

David Cameron last week said he didn’t want to ‘outsource’ the UK’s security to other nations. Yet his tiny majority - and his call for a clear majority - means he has effectively had to outsource this whole vote to Corbyn’s Labour party.

These are big stakes. A whip from Corbyn could force the PM to abandon the vote altogether. And although there are Shadow Cabinet ministers talking about quitting, maybe Corbyn has outfoxed them - because in the absence of a vote, they would be resigning without actually rebelling on a whipped vote.

Still, the BBC’s Norman Smith reports that the entire shadow defence team could quit. Sources close to the leader kinda say ‘well, the world is full of people who resign and regret it later’. I suspect that if any quitting takes place it will take place after Oldham West’s results come in on the early hours of Friday. If the party loses to UKIP, shadow cabinet ministers think they have the perfect pretext to say to Corbyn: you’ve bombed on the doorstep because you’re not serious about bombing ISIL. 

MPs also think they are more in tune with Labour voters, as opposed to members. Lots of papers pick up on Len McCluskey’s blog for HuffPost in which he warns “Any attempt to force Labour's leader out through a Westminster Palace-coup will be resisted all the way by Unite”.

* Labour Leader: Jeremy Corbyn Is Against Airstrikes while
labour MPs are in favour. (Credit: via The Waugh Zone)

But Corbyn’s calm performance on Marr yesterday achieved his team’s three main aims: to make wavering Labour MPs more likely to vote against Cameron, to scare the hell out of the PM about a whipped vote and to underline that members are driving policy now, not MPs. Maybe it’s finally dawning on the PLP that Corbyn is serious about giving members much, much more say over policy. 

Late last night - at 10pm - he also emailed the National Executive Committee (NEC) directly (the email has been passed to HuffPost) to ask their views because “as a member of the Party's governing body, it is also important to hear your views”. Corbyn, like Livingstone, wants the NEC (where he has a majority) to have more power - and possibly more than the Shadow Cabinet - that’s the real revolution few MPs have sussed out yet.

As for that whipping, Diane Abbott was on the Today programme declaring “public opinion is moving towards us in opposing the rush to war…Wholehearted opposition would mean a three-line whip….it’s a matter for the leader what the whipping will be..” She added a key caveat that Corbyn would act “in consultation with the Chief Whip”. (PolHome last night reported party rules which suggest whipping is a matter for the Shad Cab not the leader alone). I think that Tom Watson - who has his own huge party member mandate - will be key here. He said this weekend he'd prefer a free vote. Would Corbyn defy his deputy too?

On the question of others quitting, Abbott told Today “none of us want to lose colleagues….” but made clear that maybe those who disagreed with the Leader should indeed walk. The Sun points out she told LBC yesterday "if there’s is a three-line whip and you vote against it, you step down.” Abbott also knows the power Corbyn has to force Cameron to abandon the entire vote, telling Today: “If David Cameron steps back from the brink from bombing…it will be a victory for the wider public”.

As for Oldham, I wonder what the voters will think of John McDonnell telling Momentum activists that UKIP is ‘an evil force within our society’? The Sunday Tel had UKIP sources claiming the party was just 7% behind Jim McMahon. Labour will be hoping its superior postal vote operation may have done the trick, but it sounds close. It’s going to be a long week for Labour.

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* Paul Waugh is the Executive Editor, Politics, HuffPost UK.