Wednesday 2 December 2015

Today's Update From The Waugh Zone Is Titled THE CORBYN IDENTITY

by Paul Waugh | Politics Watch

David Cameron’s line to his Tory MPs at the ’22 Committee - ‘“you don’t want to walk through the lobbies with a bunch of terrorist sympathisers” - is the Telegraph splash. But it has fed into his critics’ worst fears about his tendency to lapse into arrogant disdain and crassness.
 
ory sources insists the PM wasn’t talking about all those who opposed Syria bombing and was focused specifically on people like John McDonnell and the far left. But the damage has been done. One pro-war Labour figure tells me “It was a classless remark that confirmed to us more than ever just how much we want to kick the Tories out of office”.

The difficulty for Jeremy Corbyn is how he stitches his party back together after tonight’s vote - assuming he wants to. This morning at 10am, he and Indy journalist Patrick Cockburn (an expert in the region who has written today’s splash) will brief Labour MPs on the case against military action.

But Labour MPs who are pro-bombing are complaining about the tasteless tactics used by some leftwing agitators who want them deselected. Diana Johnson posted last night the email many MPs have received warning of deselection.
 
Corbyn himself has infuriated many with his Jeremy Vine show line that there will be ‘no hiding place’ in a free vote for those ‘diehards’ who vote for war, with a hint that they will be responsible for civilian deaths. And on Channel 4 News last night he added
"any selection, reselection or deselection is at least three years away”, not exactly reassuring words.

And although this is a free vote, there are shadow whipping operations on both sides within Labour. Tensions are running high. John Woodcock was so furious at Clive Lewis’s line on Monday about ‘on their heads be it’ that he confronted him in Portcullis House yesterday. Lewis insisted his words were being taken out of context. Woodcock countered he had the transcript. To which Lewis snapped and replied: “you want to start this - so we will finish it, fuck you”.

There’s a row too over the Foreign Affairs Committee decision to vote last night by 4 to 3 for a motion stating the Government “has not adequately addressed concerns”. Crispin Blunt as chairman only has a casting vote in the event of a tie. But Mike Gapes is in hospital (as the trolls seized on yesterday) and I’m told Ann Clywd had left the meeting when John Baron called the vote. Some MPs are extremely unhappy about that indeed, given it could have swung the whole debate.

As for the speeches, watch for Ed Miliband. He may well repeat his own doubts and reflect just how far the centre of gravity of the party has shifted under his leadership on foreign intervention. As Neil Kinnock put it to one of his colleagues after the PLP about Corbyn: “He’s right, but for the wrong reasons”.

Meanwhile Labour faces another ground war in Oldham West. Jim McMahon claimed his party was winning it with its flood of activists and that UKIP had just one clapped out van. But this vote couldn’t be worse timed for Labour in showing the deep divisions under its new leader.
 
* Paul Waugh is the Executive Editor, Politics, HuffPost UK.
 
 

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