Michael Fallon was very careful indeed to push the issue of military action against Isis in Syria in as gentle a fashion as possible when he came to the Chamber this afternoon. The Defence Secretary told MPs the government knew that Isis is running its operations from North Syria, and he again made the argument about the illogicality of sticking to borders that the terror group doesn’t recognise.
His attempts not to further agitate those Tory MPs sitting behind him were interesting, but what was more interesting was the Labour response to the statement, in which Vernon Coaker made it clear that his party would be regarding potential action in Syria with a great degree more sympathy than it did for the previous proposal of potential action in Syria.
The Shadow Defence Secretary told the House of Commons that ‘we stand ready to work with the government to defeat Isil, and will carefully consider any proposals that the Government decide to bring forward’.
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