It is another messy compromise: Jeremy Corbyn gets to set the party line against military action in principle; shadow cabinet ministers get to vote in favour without formally defying the whip. It will be a free vote in practice, but the leadership has maximised the moral authority it claims on behalf of the anti-war left, which in turn helps continue a process of marginalising those MPs who are perceived as refuseniks – or saboteurs – of the Corbyn project.
This outcome conforms to the trend that has emerged in recent weeks. Since Corbyn was elected leader of his party with the support of only a fraction of Labour MPs, conflict has been inevitable. But so far it has looked more like a cold war than open battle. The two sides – the leadership and the anyone-but-Corbyn parliamentary faction – have pursued defensive tactics, or perhaps passive-aggressive is the better term, testing each other’s strength, probing and pushing without provoking total confrontation. There have been minor conflagrations followed by a return to wary equilibrium. Policy positions on Europe, on public spending, on Trident, on anti-terrorism, have all become proxies to establish who has greater authority to dictate what constitutes official Labour policy, with the effect that in reality no clear policy emerges.
But the Syria decision has dramatically raised the stakes. For Corbyn, opposing military action is more than a policy judgment. It goes to the very core of his identity as the figurehead of the anti-intervention strain of left opinion that emerged in reaction to Tony Blair’s premiership and has grown in strength ever since. If he could not convert that impulse into a settled Labour stance, his authority would have been badly compromised. That is one reason why some Corbyn allies – Diane Abbott, for example – were publicly urging a whipped vote. Forcing the pro-intervention MPs to defy the whip would help portray them as an irreconcilable “Blairite” revanche – the unspeakable fifth column in the eyes of Corbynite ultras. And if whipping the vote tipped the balance in parliament away from David Cameron, Corbyn would have had the satisfaction of declaring that a “reckless march to war” was halted by his hand.
But militating against that gamble was the need to avoid a complete breakdown of order within the parliamentary party. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, supported a free vote, mindful of the fact that Corbyn himself is on record from his pre-leadership days saying MPs should be allowed to follow their consciences when military force is proposed. An important player tipping the balance in that direction was the deputy leader, Tom Watson, who has signalled his own support for action against Islamic State and who serves as a kind of unofficial curator of compromise when Team Corbyn clashes with its internal critics. Watson had been in frequent dialogue with the leader over the weekend and Monday morning. His allies say his role has been critical. “Tom has brokered the peace deal,” says one source familiar with the discussions.
The enduring suspicion among shadow cabinet ministers is that Corbyn has tried, with some success, to have it both ways. There was dismay mingled with outrage last Friday, when the leader appeared to pre-empt a collective decision on Syria with a public letter signalling his opposition to airstrikes. Over the weekend, Momentum, the Corbyn-aligned grassroots organisation that styles itself as a vanguard for the leader’s personal campaigns, called on supporters to lobby MPs against backing Cameron. Monday, hours before the shadow cabinet was due to meet, the leader’s office released its own survey of responses from party members purporting to show overwhelming opposition to airstrikes. It looked like a concerted campaign to apply pressure so that dissenters against the Corbyn position might be depicted swimming against a tide of party opinion.
“It’s clever by him [Corbyn]. It builds the sense that he carries the members, the unions, the wider Labour movement,” says one shadow ministerial aide. In the longer run, this helps develop the story that recalcitrant MPs are obstacles on the road to a more radical form of opposition. Fomenting fear of getting on the wrong side of the party as a whole is one of the main tools the leadership has to fend off any move towards regime change.
The Corbyn-sceptics know the leader still enjoys the overwhelming backing of members and affiliated supporters. They also lack a credible replacement candidate behind whom resistance might be organised. A rebellion that sought to bring Corbyn down would confirm the left’s account of a reactionary conspiracy against the “new politics”, with the result that any ensuing contest would surely return either Corbyn himself, emboldened with an even stronger mandate, or a leader promising continuity Corbynism.
Meanwhile, the leader’s allies recognise that his greatest strength is a perception that he embodies principled collegiality (which is part of the appeal of a free vote). He must look as if he is striving for unity so that failure to make advances with the wider electorate can be blamed on the wrecking spite of his enemies. Corbyn does not want to initiate a crisis by sacking rebels from the shadow cabinet, and shadow cabinet doubters do not want to play into his hands by storming out. Some believe, however, that they are being systematically provoked.
It is in the context of this uneasy standoff that Monday’s decision must be seen. Corbyn has settled for a show of strength as the standard-bearer of anti-war feeling on the left, but pulled back from all-out confrontation with MPs and shadow cabinet ministers. He has accepted a compromise, ingenious on paper but also meaningless in the traditions of Labour policy formation, whereby the leader gets to define what the official line is and the shadow cabinet is not obliged to follow that line. So for the time being, the civil war cools down again – until the next eruption of hostilities. Thus is confirmed a strange rule of Labour chaos, familiar from periods of dysfunction under Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband: just when it looks as if things cannot possible carry on like this, they do.
