Chancellor says PM will call Commons vote only when he expects to win it but there are signs that MPs’ mood has already shifted after Paris attacks

The UK could join the aerial bombing campaign against Islamic State in Syria before Christmas, the chancellor, George Osborne, has indicated, as David Cameron prepares to bring a proposal to parliament this week.



The prime minister is likely to make a statement to MPs on Thursday, the day after Osborne’s spending review, and he will give them up to a week to digest his argument before deciding whether to call a Commons vote before the December recess.

There is speculation in Westminster that political opinion has shifted in favour of British involvement in Syria. The unanimous support in the UN security council for a resolution calling on member states to take all necessary means to eradicate Isis in the wake of the Paris assault is believed to have helped change the mood among MPs.

On Monday Cameron will travel to Paris to discuss the fight against Isis with the French president, François Hollande.



Osborne said MPs would not be given a vote until Cameron is sure will win, but there are already signs that previously sceptical Tories including Crispin Blunt, chair of the foreign affairs select committee, have switched sides.

John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, said on Sunday that the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was not planning to whip the vote on Syria, days after Corbyn indicated a free vote “was not something [the Labour leadership] are offering”.

The shadow cabinet is likely to discuss the whipping arrangements at its regular meeting on Tuesday. It is significant that two of Corbyn’s closest political allies –McDonnell and Diane Abbott – support a free vote.



McDonnell said on BBC1’s Andrew Marr show that he hoped the Commons could act as one and put aside party differences. He put the emphasis on regional forces on the ground, as opposed to airstrikes, saying the UK needed to learn from the mistakes of the past.

Corbyn and his allies remain adamantly opposed to war. There are concerns that if he does not allow a free vote, he may see mass resignations from the shadow cabinet.

Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live, Angela Eagle, the shadow leader of the Commons, acknowledged that the UN security council resolution passed at the request of the French on Friday did not formally authorise military action, but added: “It is the kind of resolution that was used in Iraq.”

Osborne said on the Marr show: “Britain is not a country that stands on their sidelines and let others protect it. We cannot wait for that civil war to end before taking the fight to its base in Isis in Syria, and that requires the RAF, in my view, taking part in the international efforts that are going on to degrade that.

“The UN vote has shown there is an international determination to deal with this pure evil. We will call the vote when we are confident to win it. In the week ahead the prime minister will come to the Commons and respond to the foreign affairs select committee report on the broader case for action in Syria, we will allow MPs to digest that response and then we will see where we stand.”

He added: “This organisation [Isis] has killed British tourists in Tunisia, it has planned plots against our citizens in Britain, it has killed people on the street in Paris and it has blown up a Russian airliner [over Egypt]. This is a threat against us all.

“There is a big question for Britain: whether we want to shape the world or be shaped by the world. For my generation, the combination of the Iraq war and the big economic recession meant that Britain retreated within itself a bit.”

Osborne said it was always possible to calculate the price of foreign intervention, but there were also costs for non-intervention.

Arab states under pressure to do more in fight against Isis Read more

Blunt said the Paris attacks and the downing of the Russian airliner over Egypthad “concentrated minds and put urgency and steel behind key international actors who have until now had irreconcilable positions on the future of Syria”.

Talks about a political settlement in Syria had provided encouragement that regional ground forces could be put in place to take control of Isis-held areas hit by allied airstrikes, he suggested. “A month ago, we did not believe the conditions we set could be met. I now do. It remains for the prime minister to demonstrate that our government is properly focused on how.”

In another boost to the those seeking a Commons majority for airstrikes, the DUP leadership suggested it was about to back war. Nigel Dodds, the Democratic Unionist leader at Westminster, said: “We have always said we can back British military force, provided it is realistic and in the national interest. The scene is set for our action being just that. It falls to David Cameron to show us that it will be. Not least, he will need to show that we will get right the things we got wrong in Libya.”