Michael Fallon is making the case to MPs today for British airstrikes against Isis in Syria. The Defence Secretary yesterday told the World at One that ‘It is a new parliament and I think Members of Parliament will want to think very carefully about how we best deal with Isil and illogicality of Isil not respecting the borderlines’. He is expected to make a statement at some point today urging MPs to do this thinking, either in the scheduled Commons debate on Britain and International Security, or separately.
Given there is no permanent Labour leader in place yet, it is unlikely that a vote on action in Syria – if the government does decide to pursue this action – will take place until after the summer recess, which does give Fallon and the whips time to really sound out colleagues, rather than rush into something at the end of the summer recess, as the government did with the ill-fated vote on strikes against President Assad in Syria in 2013.
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