Cameron says case for Syria airstrikes strengthened by Paris attacks – Politics live

The Labour MP Ann Coffey was reportedly one of those who criticised Jeremy Corbyn at last night’s PLP.

She is getting retribution on Twitter.

A Twitter account called Momentum Stockport (Momentum is the grassroots organisation set up by Corbynites) has told her to stay loyal to Corbyn or go.

Coffey has hit back.

There is more evidence of the criticism she is getting on her Twitter feed.

In its recent report, The extension of offensive British military operations to Syria, the Conservative-dominated Commons foreign affairs committee stuck a very sceptical note about extending British air strikes against Islamic State (Isis) to Syria. Here’s an extract from the summary of the report.

We believe that there should be no extension of British military action into Syria unless there is a coherent international strategy that has a realistic chance of defeating ISIL and of ending the civil war in Syria. We consider that the focus on the extension of airstrikes against ISIL in Syria is a distraction from the much bigger and more important task of finding a resolution to the conflict in Syria and thereby removing one of the main facilitators of ISIL’s rise.

But today Crispin Blunt, the Conservative MP who chairs the committee, is sounding much more amenable to air strikes. In the Commons he said he hoped the government would come up with a plan that would allow the British armed forces to play a role that would “lead to the defeat of [Isis] in both Syria and Iraq sooner rather than later”. (See 1.30pm.)

And on the World at One he suggested this plan was taking shape. He told the programme:

The objective is the comprehensive, military defeat of Isis [where] it no longer has territory to administer. Simply widening the scope of a British aircraft doesn’t do that. What you actually need is international agreement and a coherent plan so you’ve worked out who’s going to be the ground troops, who is going to provide the air forces, and who’s going to administer the territory once it’s taken.

I think we’re beginning to work towards the kind of international plan that will mean we’ve got a military task that we can achieve, and the military task is defeating [Isis] in Syria and Iraq and that means taking that territory and finding someone to administer it once we’ve taken it off [Isis].

I’ve taken the quote from PoliticsHome.

Every wondered what it looks like inside GCHQ’s operations room? Now we know, because George Osborne had a photographer with him when he toured it earlier. This is the 24-hours operations room.

There are more pictures here.

Here are two more lines from the Cameron statement that I missed earlier.

• Cameron suggested the government might tighten restrictions on Britons who return home after going to Syria. In response to a question from the Conservative MP Sir Bill Cash, Cameron said the government had already taken various measures, including giving itself the temporary power to exclude Britons who have been in Syria from returning home. But he went on:

I am all for looking at options for going further on these measures to make sure we keep ourselves safe. It was very contentious at the time and I think this is demonstrating we were right to stick to our guns.

• Liam Fox, the Conservative former defence secretary, suggested the government should be willing to commit ground troops to the fight against Islamic State. In a question to Cameron, Fox said that military campaigns were not won from the air alone and that Cameron should “rule nothing out”. Cameron said the Iraqi government were best placed to defeat Isis on the ground.

Chuka Umunna, the Labour MP and former shadow business secretary, says the police should have the power to use lethal force where necessary. But he asks Cameron to publish the advice that governs when it is used.

Cameron says he will asks the Home Office to write to Umunna about this.

David Nuttall, a Conservative, asks Cameron if he will speed up introduction of the investigatory powers bill in the light of the Paris attacks.

Cameron says he will look at the timing. But most of the elements in the bill tidy up powers that are already available to the authorities, he says, implying there is no urgency. The only key new powers in it are the ones relating to internet addresses, he says.

The first MP to ask Cameron about “shoot to kill” was the Conservative Angela Watkinson. According to the Press Association, she said:

Given the extreme circumstances of a Paris-type attack in London, do you think that depriving the police of the right to shoot to kill would make the public safer?

And Cameron replied:

No I absolutely don’t. And I hope that the leader of the opposition will review his remarks because, frankly, when you are combating a terrorist attack and if you look at what happened in Paris, it was an attack, it wasn’t a siege, it wasn’t taking hostages and setting out demands, it was an attempt to kill as many people as possible.

When the police are confronted by that they must be absolutely clear that if they have to take out a terrorist to save lives they should go right ahead and do so.

Pat McFadden, the shadow Europe minister, also attacked the Stop the War claim about French policy being partly to blame for the Paris attacks. He urged Cameron to reject the view that what terrorists do is always a reaction to what the West has done.

Does [Cameron] agree with me that that approach risks infantilising the terrorists and treating them as children when the truth is that they are adults and entirely responsible for what they do?

Cameron praised McFadden for his “moral and intellectual clarity” and said that sort of clarity was necessary when dealing with terrorists. He said there was a deep instinct in all of us to find excuses for behaviour. But sometimes the truth was obvious and staring us in the face, he said.

Another Labour MP has used had a go at Corbyn. Emma Reynolds asked Cameron if he agreed that “any attempt, by any organisation, somehow to blame the West or France’s military intervention [for Paris] is not only wrong, disgraceful, but should be condemned”.

That was a clear reference to the Stop the War tweet on Saturday (subsequently deleted) saying Paris was “reaping [the] whirlwind of western support for extremist violence in Middle East”. When Corbyn was asked about this yesterday he said he did not agree with the language, but he did not condemn the tweet.

There was quite a lot of cheering when Reynolds said this. Cameron said this showed that MPs from all sides agreed with her.

Earlier Crispin Blunt, the Conservative chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee, said he hoped that Cameron would come forward with a plan for Syria that would show how British forces could play a part in the defeat of Isis. Blunt has been one of the most sceptical Tory MPs on the subject of military intervention in Syria, but the wording of his question suggested that Cameron might be able to find some formula that would allow him to vote in favour.

UPDATE: Here is his quote.

Can I thank you for your commitment to a personal reply to the foreign affairs committee report and your acknowledgement that the defeat of Isil requires a transition out of the Syrian civil war? And the progress made at Vienna is therefore beginning to clear the path towards an international plan that would enable that full conventional military defeat of so-called Islamic State in both Syria and Iraq.

Will you continue to put our full diplomatic effort into making that plan sufficiently clear – politically, militarily and legally – so you can come to the House to seek an endorsement of a role for our armed forces that will lead to the defeat of Isil in both Syria and Iraq sooner rather than later?

Chris Leslie, the Labour MP and former shadow chancellor, has also had a go at Corbyn over “shoot to kill”. In a question to Cameron, Leslie said it should be “obvious to everyone” that the police need the right to use lethal force in some circumstances. Cameron said he agreed, and he repeated his call for Corbyn to reflect on what he said yesterday.

In the Commons two MPs have now raised Jeremy Corbyn’s comments about “shoot to kill” (see 9.10am) with David Cameron. Cameron said that he hoped Corbyn would reflect on what he said. He said the police needed to have the powers to stop terrorists.

Some Labour MPs were nodding as David Cameron implicitly accused Jeremy Corbyn of making “excuses” for Islamic State. (See 12.59am.)

Corbyn says the government should protect the police budget.

Does Cameron agree with what Lord Blair, the former Met police chief, has said about the importance of community policing? Corbyn says he has seen for himself, as an inner city MP, how important this is?

Corbyn says Muslims are as appalled by the attacks as everyone else. What is being done to ensure community cohesion?

He says it is important to keep meeting our obligations to refugees.

He says Isis grew out of the invasion of Iraq. Will Cameron consider this point?

Corbyn says a few bombs and missiles more in Syria won’t transform the situation.

Will Cameron confirm that, before he pushes for a vote on further military action, he will provide answers to the seven questions in the foreign affairs committee’s report on this (pdf)?

Corbyn asks what is being asked to stop the supply of weapons to repressive regimes in the region that allow weapons to get into the hands of Isis?

And what is being done to stop Isis’s funding? And what is being done to stop them selling oil

Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, is responding to David Cameron.

He thanks him for the measured and careful tone of his comments since Paris.

He agrees on the need to get consensus in tackling Isis, he says.

The attacks in Paris were “contemptible”, he says. They will fail to divide us, he says.

And he pays special tribute to the work of the emergency services. It is not easy to drive an ambulance not know what you will find, he says.

Cameron says the England/France match is going ahead.

Together we will prevail, he says.

Cameron says he will take the unusual step of responding personally to the recent report from the foreign affairs committee calling for a plan for a wider peace in Syria.

Cameron says the extremist ideology is not true Islam. But we should not deny that there is a connection between the extremists and Islam, not least because the extremists self-identify as Muslim.

He says Muslim scholars are playing an important role in saying that they do not represent Islam. He commends them for what they have done.

He defends the drone attack on Mohammed Emwazi. Given where he is, there is no alternative way of tackling the threat he poses, he says.

(This is a clear dig at Jeremy Corbyn, who said it would have been better if Emwazi could have been brought to trial.)

He says coalition forces have attacked 13,500 Islamic State (Isis, or Isil) targets.

And Isis have lost 30% of their territory in Iraq, he says.

David Cameron is making his statement now.

He says a Briton was among those killed in the attacks.

After horror and anger must come resolve to ride the world of this evil.

The Paris attacks justify the “full spectrum approach” he has described previously. That means military power, counter-terrorism action, and countering the extremist narrative.

Channel 4 News’s Michael Crick thinks at some point in the future Lord Rennard will stand for the Lib Dem’s federal executive again.

Chuka Umunna, the Labour MP and former shadow business secretary, has said that he does not want Jeremy Corbyn to attend a Stop the War event planned for later this year. This was one of the issues that came up at the PLP last night. See 10.04am.

David Cameron will attend the England/France match tonight at Wembley, Number 10 has said.

Q: Is the Home Office going to get more leeway in the spending review as a result of this new focus on security?

Osborne says national security was at the heart of the spending review before the Paris attacks. He had already announced that he would spend 2% of national income on defence, and that he would increase funding for the intelligence agencies. What happened on Friday just reinforced the case for these decisions.

If you don’t have sound public finances, you do not have national security, he says.

And that’s it. The Q&A is over. I will post a summary soon.

Q: What evidence is there that Islamic State (Isis, or Isil) are mounting cyber attacks? And what do they want to attack?

Osborne says we know that Isis use the internet for propaganda purposes, and for organising account. He says they have also said they want to mount cyber attacks. They do not have that capability now, but it would be “naive” to think they will not develop it, he says.

Q: How can you justify doubling the spending on cyber security when the police face severe cuts?

Osborne says the government is committed to keeping the nation safe. Police reforms have led to more officers on the beat, even though police numbers have fallen. You do not have to choose between security and economic responsibility, he says.

Osborne says his national cyber plan is bold and far-reaching.

It won’t stop Britain being attacked every minute of every day.

But it will make Britain one of the best-protected countries in the world, he says.

And that’s it. Osborne has finished.

Osborne says international norms must be established to deal with the cyber security threat.

That requires a community of like-minded countries, he says.

Osborne says the capacity to attack is also an aspect of defence.

We need to dissuade people and states from targeting us in the first place, he says.

This is an issue of deterrence.

Whoever attacks us must know that we are able to hit back.

We must destroy the idea that there is impunity in cyber space.

Osborne says the UK reserves the right to respond to a cyber attack in any way that we can.

He says the UK is building an offensive cyber capability. (See 10.49am.)

Osborne says the TalkTalk experience shows how cyber attack can go from a theoretical risk to a massive business cost.

Osborne says he wants to encourage cyber start-ups.

He says he wants to create an arch of cyber excellence.

One of his new centres of cyber excellence will be in Cheltenham, he says.

And he says he will create a £160m defence cyber innovation fund to foster innovative procurement in defence.

Osborne says it is also important to ensure that people with the right skills are available.

He is launching a competition to set up a higher education institute of coding, he says.

There will also be retraining for high-skilled workers who want to move into cyber.

And he will set up a scheme for 14 to 17-year-old to discover teenagers with an aptitude for cyber.

In 2016 there will be a single national cyber centre, Osborne says. It will report to the head of GCHQ.

This will make it easier for industry to get the support it needs.

It will draw on GCHQ expertise. But it will have a strong public face too, he says.

It will develop new capabilities.

And it will build teams with expertise in specific areas.

This will be a hugely important and ambitious undertaking, he says.

Osborne is talking about aspects of the government’s cyber security programme.

The government already diverts government departments from websites and addresses that are known to be suspect. A £1m investment has saved HMRC £40m, he says.

He says he wants internet providers to divert users from known bad addresses as a matter of routine.

Back at GCHQ Osborne is saying government has a unique ability to protect people in cyber space. It has sovereign capability.

As the first chancellor to give a speech at GCHQ, he is conscious of its young history.

Churchill established it, he said. Originally it was “room 40” in the Admiralty during the first world war.

Churchill later became chancellor. Actually, he was “a pretty lousy” chancellor, Osborne says.

But he quotes Churchill writing to Baldwin saying that he attached more importance to the “flimsies” (briefings) from “room 40” than other government briefings. But Churchill complained that, as chancellor, he did not get access to them.

Osborne says the public will not see the faces of those working at GCHQ.

But they are unsung heroes, he says.

Normally they foil one terrorist plot a year. But in the last year they have foiled seven plots against the UK.

Here’s George Osborne, the chancellor, on the inflation figures. (See 10.36am.)

With inflation unchanged at -0.1%, employment at an all-time high and pay growth across our economy remaining strong, today’s news continues to mean household budgets are going further.

Of course, in an uncertain global economy we continue to be alert to all risks and that’s why in the spending review we will set out the next steps in our plan to build a resilient economy: delivering the economic security of a country that lives within its means, enhancing our national security and extending opportunity for all.

George Osborne will soon be giving his speech at GCHQ. There is a live Reuters feed, so I will be able to cover it in detail.

Journalists are in the audience, but they are not able to tweet. Because they’re in GCHQ, they have all had to hand in their phones.

The Labour MP Ian Austin has also used Twitter to condemn Jeremy Corbyn’s comments on “shoot to kill”.

But my friends at Media Lens remind me that three days ago, in a Mirror article, the former deputy prime minister John Prescott said that further military intervention in the Middle East would be a mistake. Prescott also condemned the killing of Mohammed Emwazi in a drone strike, saying “it will be seen in the Middle East as a state-sponsored execution”.

The most detailed account of last night’s angry PLP meeting seem to Paul Waugh’s at Huffingon Post. Here’s an extract. The full article is much longer.

An angry John Mann, MP for Bassetlaw, revealed that his niece – a Labour party member – had been in a bar next to one of the restaurants that was attacked by terrorists in Paris.

She had locked herself in a toilet with eight other terrified friends for three hours “thinking she was going to be murdered”, Mr Mann said.

He asked Mr Corbyn if he believed that terrorists wielding Kalashnikovs shouldn’t be shot by security forces in circumstances like those in France, but received no answer, one MP said. “Are you telling Labour party members if somebody’s outside with a Kalashnikov, you are not going to shoot them?” Mr Mann is said to have asked.

MPs asked Mr Corbyn if he agreed with the Stop The War Coalition article that had this weekend claimed that Paris had ‘reaped the whirlwind of western support for extremist violence in the Middle East’.

Mr Corbyn described the article as ‘inappropriate’ and insisted that Stop the War Coalition had pulled it from its website, but when faced with jeers of ‘condemn it! condemn it!” refused to answer, other than to say ‘I didn’t write it’.

He was then asked why he was guest speaker at a Christmas fundraiser for the peace group, of which he has long been a supporter, but again did not answer, according to one MP present.

Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former press secretary, has joined those attacking Jeremy Corbyn for his response to the Paris terror attacks.

Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, is facing a backlash from MPs in his party over his response to the Paris terror attacks. He was criticised at what seems to have been a particularly angry meeting of the parliamentary Labour party (PLP) last night and this morning Hilary Benn, the shadow foreign secretary, struggled to defend Corbyn when asked about some of the things Corbyn has said in a Today interview.

Corbyn gave various interviews yesterday, but the most important ones are his interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg (written up in full here) and with ITV. To the alarm of some MPs, in his interviews he said he was opposed to a “shoot to kill” policy against terrorists on British streets, questioned the decision to kill the Islamic State (Isis) fighter and executioner Mohammed Emwazi in a drone strike, seemed to rule out a free vote for Labour MPs on extending air strikes against Isisi in Syria and refused to say if he would ever support military action against Islamist jihadists.

In his Today interview, Benn twice said he was unable to explain what Corbyn meant when he appeared to reject a “shoot to kill” policy in relation to armed terrorists. Benn said that Labour supported the “long-standing procedure” that allowed the police to use lethal force where there was an imminent threat to life.

I can’t answer for Jeremy. All I can say is what is the position of the party, the long standing position, in the United Kingdom, there are procedures; it’s got to be reasonable, it’s got to be proportionate, but you’ve got to protect human life.

After Corbyn’s interviews, a Labour aide clarified Corbyn’s remarks, saying Corbyn was also committed to this.

(As the BBC’s Dominic Casciani explains here, “shoot to kill” is not an accurate description of the policy that applies now anyway, although it is clear from the interview what Kuenssberg was talking about.)

Benn also refused to say whether or not he would resign if Corbyn attended a Stop the War event later this year. The organisation, which Corbyn chaired until shortly after his election as Labour leader, was strongly criticised on Saturday for sending out a tweet (subsequently deleted) saying Paris was “reaping [the] whirlwind of western support for extremist violence in Middle East”. Asked about this by the BBC yesterday, Corbyn said he would not use that language, but he suggested he agreed with the analysis. Benn was much more critical, describing the tweet as “shocking”. He went on:

It was wholly wrong to say that. This is not the fault of the French. I’m glad that tweet was deleted.

I will post more from Benn’s interview soon.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: Inflation figures are published.

Around 10.30am: George Osborne, the chancellor, gives his speech at GCHQ.

11.30am: Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, gives evidence on the EU renegotiation to the Commons European scrutiny committee.

12.30pm: David Cameron gives a statement to MPs on the Paris attacks and the G20.

I will be covering the British political reaction to the Paris attacks here, but if you want to follow all the global developments, do read our separate Paris attacks live blog.

If you want to follow me on Twitter, I’m at @AndrewSparrow.