The United Kingdom’s Support To Strike Terrorists In Syria Rests On One Weak Man

Prior to the Thanksgiving holiday, British Prime Minister David Cameron was facing solid opposition to his push that would bring more support for the United Kingdom to expand their war against the Islamic State from Iraq into Syria, after the terrorist group launched a series of well-coordinated attacks in Paris on November 13, 2015.

Around that time, Reuters reported the prime minister’s statements and those of the opposition, led by leftist Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who questioned the logic to simply go into Syria based off of the Paris attacks.

During that time, even the support of Cameron’s own conservative party to go to war was small, but since then, Jeremy Corbyn has reportedly made tenuous effort to lead his party, which could decide, not only the final decision to expand airstrikes into Syria, but as to the future of his leadership.

Thus far, over the last few days, Corbyn had only posted once about his widely publicized questions to the prime minister via twitter.

In the Commons the PM just answered a series of questions raised by the Foreign Affairs Cmttee. I asked him 7 more. https://t.co/rKMNQd9OHc

— Jeremy Corbyn MP (@jeremycorbyn) November 26, 2015

Other tweets are specific to climate change or the execution of teenagers by the Saudi government, asking that prime ministers intervene but nothing more on the debate over Syria for his 339,000 followers.

Activist groups however, such as the Stop The War Coalition, have ratcheted up protests against Cameron’s decision to go to war, by organizing over a thousand protesters in front of his office on Downing street, which The Guardian reports has the support of well-known musicians like Brian Eno and comedian Frankie Boyle.

The video provided is a BBC interview with a former member of the Socialist Worker’s party and founding member of the anti-war group, who refers to some of the points made by Corbyn, which highlight why he does not support the call to war and his involvment with the group.

On their Stop The War site, up until June of 2015 before he became leader, he published articles for the group.

Things got heated on the November 25 when Corbyn sent a letter to his MPs, making his opposition clear and thus, infuriating many within his party who are outraged, according to The Telegraph, to the point where they even called for his removal as they had not yet put their vote forward to side for either action or inaction.

Now, before the sessions begin again on Monday, more Labour party members are beginning to ask for his resignation, threatening his very short term as leader as he has only been elected to represent the United Kingdom’s leftist party since September of 2015.

Feeling the pressure — and no doubt as a result, Jeremy Corbyn sent another email to his Members of Parliament (MP) on Friday with a invitation to submit what they think they should do, only infuriating them more.

Jeremy Corbyn’s letter to Labour MPs.At least one man has stopped to think, rather than blindly supporting a headlong…

Posted by David Crystal on Thursday, November 26, 2015

Again, prior to this, the United Kingdom’s prime minister, David Cameron, was pressed hard to make a case for his call to support more airstrikes given that since he became PM in 2010, he already had to make the case before in support of U.S. President Obama’s action to oust Assad with attacks in 2013. That decision did not get the support either leader wanted, and put power into Russia’s hands to overlook chemical weapons regulation, after Assad was reported to have used them on his own people, killing hundreds.

Often repeated is the case where like the U.S., the United Kingdom shares the responsibility of waging war on Afghanistan and Iraq, which a world majority agree was a debacle and should not be repeated again. Cameron’s call to action appears to mirror what former Prime Minister Tony Blair did in 2003.

Arguably, both Cameron and Corbyn would have an equal chance to make their case and a main point the Labour party’s leader made is how the Islamic State could stage attacks on the United Kingdom, as a result of joining an already international coalition.

On example of that possibility can be seen in a story written for the Inquisitr which talks about a British citizen who joined the Islamic State, putting an end to all doubts to his radicalization, with the open possibility of his return to the United Kingdom to stage attacks, like what happened in Paris.

Another Inquisitr report describes the United Kingdom’s high-alert status for threats which coincide with the Prime Minister’s statement that seven attacks had already been thwarted.

To go even further, the United Kingdom has already been threatened over the week in a high-production video by the terrorist group.

Though David Cameron’s argument to go to war and chances of success would be weak under normal circumstance, it appears that it would be enough to mobilize members of parliament against Jeremy Corbyn just for being too weak to pull together enough support for Cameron, putting what is considered a repeat of bad decisions in the hands of another Prime Minister.

But as the defection under Corbyn grows, The Telegraph is also reporting that he is being pressured to also stand his ground as not going to war is what the people he represents would want.

The Labour party holds the second-largest number of seats in Parliament next to the conservatives and as the anger grows within his party, some of its members appear to be instigating a coup to oust Corbyn by next week and using the upcoming election for a parlimentary constituency of Oldham West as a reason to get Labour MP Hilary Benn in as the interim leader.

In United Kingdom’s politics, Oldham West constituents are generally supported by the Labour party, but Jeremy has only visited the area once on November 6 since becoming leader which apparently did not go very well. That too is detailed in another story by The Telegraph; which also describes why the party is trying to prevent him from campaigning there.

The same sentiment is expressed in this other tweet by a local.

On the subject of his leadership, is #Corbyn really trying to say he cannot make aside a few hours to visit #OldhamWest! Ducking not leading

— Philip (@PhilipOrPip) November 28, 2015

As things currently stand, clear signs of a coup begin to fall into place over the weekend when Hilary Benn demanded to speak aside Corbyn on Monday, likely to call on the removal of the leader and just in time to make sure their support for Cameron’s air strikes be counted. There’s every reason to believe at this point, that despite whatever efforts Corbyn makes to stop them — unless there is a dramatic change of support for him — that the United Kingdom will only naturally legitimize their current covert strikes in Syria on a broader and more public scale.

[Featured image by David Holt via Flickr is under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0) License]