Jeremy Corbyn’s rationale for opposing the Syria strike is collapsing

The Syria missile strike has been backed by the governments of Germany, Canada, New Zealand and more – but not Jeremy Corbyn. Not for him the convention of the Opposition leader supporting the government in issues of war and peace. ‘I say to the Prime Minister: where is the legal case for this?’ he told Andrew Marr this morning. The legal case has been published here, at some length. Corbyn then suggested that international OPCW inspectors should be called in to judge what had happened. But is there any doubt about what happened? Today, the Sunday Times publishes testimonies of victims of the gas attack: accounts of differing people corroborate the use of a chlorine bomb. Even the United Nations accepts that sending in international inspectors is unrealistic in the middle of a civil war. The UN comes to its judgements about poison gas use by interviewing survivors and the medics who treated them, just as the Sunday Times has now.