Will there be a second vote on Syria? As you might expect, that question dominated today’s lobby briefing with the Prime Minister’s official spokesman. He told journalists that ‘there has been no change’ in the Prime Minister’s view since Thursday’s vote and that ‘parliament has spoken: that’s why the government has absolutely no plans to go back to Parliament’.
As I said this morning, the only way in which you’d be at all safe putting money on another vote on this matter would be if Ed Miliband came back to Cameron and pledged his support. And on this, Labour is being rather less equivocal than the government. Chuka Umunna has appeared on BBC News in the past hour to say:
‘If the Prime Minister wants to change his position and come forward with new proposals and wants to have another debate in Parliament that is a matter for him. We were very clear last week, let’s be absolutely clear about our position; we were being asked to agree to military action in principle without being properly furnished with the evidence on Thursday last week.’
He added:
‘We are not in Government, we aren’t the ones who decide whether or not to send our forces into theatre and into action, that is properly an issue for the Prime Minister to instigate and to come forward with.
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