David Cameron and his colleagues have made fairly carefully-worded pledges on whether or not Parliament should be consulted if the government starts planning for a military intervention in Syria. They could feasibly stick to the precise wording of those pledges this week without recalling MPs for a debate, but this will be a very difficult position to maintain as pressure is growing on all sides for a recall. Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander said this evening:
‘If, in reality, the Prime Minister is now considering military options involving UK personnel then of course I would expect him to seek a recall of Parliament and to come to the House of Commons and make his case in advance of a decision being made.’
It’s not just the opposition pushing for a debate, though. On Westminster Hour this evening, Andrew Bridgen, who co-ordinated the letter from Tory MPs to the Prime Minister demanding a vote on the issue in June, said ‘we need to recall Parliament immediately’ and that ‘it would be damaging for the Prime Minister not to listen to backbenchers’.
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