British opposition leader calls for ‘political solution’ to Syria crisis

Labour’s former acting leader has claimed that Jeremy Corbyn sees gender as a “distraction” as she sought to criticise the lack of women in his top team.

He added: “The foreign policy overall that has been adopted has not worked”.

Mr Hammond said: ” Our discussions in Vienna have been constructive, and there is now momentum behind a process working towards peace for the people of Syria.

Speaking at the Where are the Women? event hosted by Lucy Cavendish College Cambridge, Ms Harman said: “Jeremy needs to think about how it has been perceived and there is a very easy way to solve that, which is that we can have an additional deputy who is elected either by all women in the party or all men and women in the party, but who is elected to be the additional deputy who is a woman”.

It is here that Corbyn’s latest retreat does most damage.

I am not saying “sit round the table with Isis”, I am saying bring about a political settlement in Syria which will help then to bring a few kind of unity government – technical government – in Syria.

Shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn also addressed the PLP and won loud applause as he attacked IS as fascists, who beheaded, killed homosexuals and raped women.

Off the front-bench, Labour MP John Woodcock, the chair of Labour defence committee and a leading opponent of Corbyn, told the Daily Mirror Saturday, “The fearless Iraqis and Syrians fighting to remove ISIS’s base for terror are clear they will not succeed without coalition air support-this new attack should prompt the government and all political parties to look afresh at the case for extending the air campaign across the whole of the territory now controlled by the extremists”. We have to stop it at the start; stop this seed of hatred even being planted in people’s minds, let alone allowing it to grow.

It was not until Monday that Corbyn made any significant statement on Syria in the aftermath of Paris. Probably not. The idea has to be surely a political settlement in Syria.

None of this is fundamentally different to what Cameron and President Barack Obama were seeking to accomplish in talks with Russian President Putin at the G-20.

Mr Corbyn, stressing how he would only authorise actions that were “legal in the terms of worldwide law”, was asked if he believed the attack on Emwazi was legal.

She added: “We have to fight side by side if we want to defeat terrorism”.

Referring to how British jihadists, who had been killed by drone strikes, had been planning to kill people in Britain, Mr Cameron stressed: “In that situation, you do not protect people by sitting around and wishing for another world; you have to act in this one and that means being prepared to use military force where necessary”. He replied: “I question that”.

She told Murnaghan: “It is hard to comment because it is not only a Government decision but they have chose to consult with the Parliament”.