Labour MPS side with May over Syria attack

LABOUR MPS were cheered yesterday as they praised Theresa May for doing “the right thing” by bombing Syria, while Jeremy Corbyn was attacked from his back benches for turning a “blind eye” to those responsible for gassing children.

The Labour leader was left isolated as his own MPS mocked him for criticising Mrs May for ordering airstrikes on Assad regime targets following a chemical weapons attack near Damascus. Mr Corbyn will today put pressure on the Government to seek the permission of MPS before future deployments of the Armed Forces after the Speaker granted his application for an emergency debate on “Parliament’s right in relation to the approval of military action by British forces overseas”.

But Mrs May made it clear that she would bomb Syria again if it used chemical weapons and would not feel the need to seek Parliament’s permission to do so.

Yesterday it emerged that Donald Trump favoured bombing Russian and Iranian targets in Syria using three times the firepower that was eventually deployed, before he was talked out of it by James Mattis, the US defence secretary.

Meanwhile, GCHQ and the FBI disclosed that Russia had targeted the home internet networks of tens of thousands of British households, as well as probing the vulnerabilities of the country’s critical infrastructure including the Armed Forces, emergency services and power grid.

Mrs May addressed Parliament for the first time since Saturday’s cruise missile strike on Assad regime targets, setting out her reasons for taking action before answering questions from 140 MPS.

The Prime Minister received overwhelming support from her own party for acting swiftly against Syria without asking for permission from the Commons, but was criticised by Mr Corbyn and a handful of Tory MPS for deciding William Hague: Page 16 Tim Stanley: Page 17 Editorial Comment: Page 17

not to recall Parliament to debate the issue last week.

Asked if she would do the same again if Syria committed further outrages, an unrepentant Mrs May said: “Nobody should be in any doubt of our resolve to ensure that we cannot see a situation where the use of chemical weapons is normalised…

“I set out the basis on which we took this decision and I recognise the importance of Parliament but it’s also important that the Government is able to act, and there will always be circumstances in which it is important to act without that debate having taken place in Parliament.”

Mr Corbyn was greeted with angry shouts of “shame!” when he told MPS: “The Prime Minister is accountable to this Parliament, not to the whims of the US president.” He once again suggested that Assad might be innocent of the chemical attack as “other groups” could have carried it out, and said the airstrikes were “legally questionable”.

Chris Leslie, the Labour MP, took issue with Mr Corbyn’s non-interventionist stance, telling the Commons: “Intervening to save civilians from future gas attacks, while not without risk, was absolutely the right thing to do.”

A number of Labour MPS, including Richard Burgon, the shadow justice secretary, attended a demonstration in Westminster last night at which activists were seen waving Baathist flags and pro-assad banners.

The far-left protest was also attended by Corbyn allies Chris Williamson and Emma Dent Coad. In a speech to the rally, Mr Williamson suggested that there was no evidence for a chemical attack in Syria and that Assad had no motive for conducting one.