Black Country Labour MP suggests Jeremy Corbyn should resign over Syria

The Prime Minister spent three hours in the House of Commons on Thursday taking questions on his plan to carry out strikes in Syria to try and defeat Islamic State, whose so-called caliphate now controls large parts of Iraq and Syria.

The Prime Minister has repeatedly said he will not seek the support of the House unless he is certain of winning as defeat would hand a propaganda victory to the extremists.

With a majority of members now firmly in favour of air strikes, one of Mr Corbyn’s few allies in the shadow cabinet warned they could expect to come under intense pressure when they return to their constituencies at the weekend.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has taken the debate over whether to back airstrikes in Syria to his party’s members by polling them directly via email – in a move likely to increase tension among divided Labour MPs.

But others, in Labour and the Scottish National Party, were less convinced, saying the prime minister had yet to present a clear peace plan for Syria after the military campaign.

Mr Corbyn faced warnings of resignations after he wrote to Labour MPs expressing his opposition to air strikes and rejecting the prime minister’s case for military action.

Asked if he would resign if there were not a free vote, the Midlands MP said: “No, of course not”.

Cameron told some lawmakers, who fear joining the air strikes over Syria would make Britain more of a target, that with the threat to the country already as high as it could be, the only way of reducing it would be to “degrade” Islamic State.

Le Drian also said some of its European Union partners should be able to provided logistical help in Africa, where the deployment of French forces is stretching resources.

Mr Cameron said the Royal Air Force’s equipment is sophisticated enough to make a real difference to the current bombing campaigns of France and the US, and that he believed there were also 70,000 moderate forces on the ground who could support Britain’s campaign from the skies.

While allies of Mr Corbyn appealed for calm within the Labour ranks, critics on the backbenches openly voiced their contempt for his “weak” leadership and urged him to step down.

Earlier, Mr Cameron urged Labour MPs to back military intervention in Syria, telling them to “vote on the basis of the arguments”.

The chaos engulfing the party led to Ms Mactaggart suggesting that it was the Labour leader who should be resigning.

The Welsh MP revealed he had told his leader he would have to resign if he became a “liability” to the party and that Mr Corbyn “understands that”. “I think it’s shameful”.

“It’s absolutely right for him to put that view in the shadow cabinet”.

The leader of the Labour Party, meanwhile, wrote in a letter that he can not support the action.