Syria and Labour’s poisonous civil war

WHILE the Mail has expressed deep reservations about bombing Islamic State in Syria, we congratulate David Cameron on the 174-vote majority he achieved on Wednesday night.

MPs from six different parties, including 66 Labour rebels, marched through the Division Lobby with the Prime Minister, giving him the consensus he was so desperately seeking – and, with it, political legitimacy should the war drag on or, worse, end in failure.

Labour, by bitter contrast, has been reduced to a hate-filled, riven shambles by the vote – in which almost half of the Shadow Cabinet defied the anti-war Jeremy Corbyn, including his defence spokesman, shadow foreign secretary and deputy leader. MPs who voted in favour of bombing have been sent pictures of dead babies, viciously abused on Twitter or had their offices marched upon by a hard-Left mob – many apparently encouraged to carry out their intimidation by Mr Corbyn’s own team.

Threats of 1980s- style de- selection of the rebels – many of whom loathe their leader every bit as much as he does them, irrespective of his bullying tactics over Syria – are rife.

Meanwhile, the ‘moderates’ openly show their desire to install Hilary Benn as leader – clapping and cheering his promilitary action speech on Wednesday.

Which, of course, has only further angered Mr Corbyn and his thuggish, terrorist- supporting henchman John McDonnell – who yesterday compared Mr Benn’s intervention to Tony Blair’s toxic 2003 war-mongering oratory over Iraq.

On social media, Mr Benn was informed by the mob that his father Tony – who made a truly stirring speech on the case against bombing Iraq in 1998 – would be ‘spinning in his grave’.

Normally, it would not be for the Mail to intrude on Labour Party grief.

But in these deeply perilous times – and with Mr Cameron having no clear plan for how British involvement in Syria will end, or even what he hopes to achieve – Labour’s civil war is unsustainable and, one way or another, must be brought to an end.

The country needs a strong, united Opposition – not a rabble who are injecting poison into the body of British politics.