Cameron at 10

by Anthony Seldon

  Tory backbencher Nick de Bois is one of many returning MPs who have asked their constituents for feedback and is besieged by emails ‘overwhelmingly opposed’ to intervention.25 Few opinion polls are being published because of the speed of events. On 28 August, however, YouGov suggest that the British public oppose military action in the form of missile strikes by a ratio of two to one. The Sun carries the story on their front page.26 Over the course of the Wednesday, it becomes clear that Labour support will be ‘essential’ if the vote is to be carried. Cameron meets Osborne and Hague for forty minutes at 8.30 a.m. before the NSC meeting, while Clegg joins the conversation at 9.10. They debate Labour’s evolving thinking, but are as uncertain about what is going on in the mind of Miliband as in the mind of Obama. They agree that if Labour tables an amendment to say that there must be an attempt at a UNSCR, then the government will lose. Should they push the White House to gain extra leverage? Their discussion is inconclusive and the mood at the NSC is cautious. Foreign Office diplomats are concerned about how the international community will respond. No one openly opposes the plan; equally, it is obvious to many that, in the absence of Cameron, few would be pushing for military action.

  Despite its reservations, the NSC agrees that the British should support any American action. It recommends that British military planes should be deployed in a bombing campaign, and that Cabinet should be asked to endorse that decision the following day. At 2.30 p.m. on Wednesday, Miliband and Douglas Alexander are invited back to Downing Street to meet Cameron, Clegg and Hague. Alexander maintains that ‘we were open to support the government’ still at that stage.27 Cameron opens by saying: ‘As you asked, we have taken action and we have written to Ban Ki-moon, we have had consultations with the P5 [the five permanent members of the Security Council] for a Chapter 7 Resolution,’ authorising military action, as in Libya. Miliband and Alexander unleash another torrent of questions: ‘How can the Security Council discuss this quickly enough for a vote tomorrow? Have the inspectors finished their work yet?’ Two days earlier, Ban Ki-moon had said a further week’s work was required before the inspectors completed their evidence-gathering. This timetable puts Cameron in a weaker position. ‘You are talking about this UN Security Council meeting as a moment, as theatre, not substance,’ Alexander says. ‘How can the Commons vote before weapons inspections?’ Miliband asks. Cameron replies: ‘We’re going to take a look at the motion because I think it answers everything. It puts down caveats and says the things you want.’ ‘I need some time to reflect,’ Miliband replies. Cameron is visibly uncomfortable: ‘Time is tight. I’ve tried to get your signature. I’ve tried to meet your need with lots of clauses and a long motion. If it’s not likely to get your support, I need to know because then I’ll go for a shorter approach.’ Clegg is staunch in his support. ‘Look, this is a moment in history and we all have to choose. Do events require a response? Is this response good enough? It’s not about process, although process is very important.’

  They are now arguing openly with each other. ‘It’s not about process, it’s about legitimacy,’ Alexander says, mindful again of Iraq. ‘This is all unlikely to succeed because we know we won’t get the UNSCR because of the Russians,’ insists Cameron. Alexander says ‘Legitimacy is about letting the inspectors work too. It’s about letting the inspectors finish.’ Miliband is defiant. ‘Process matters, it’s crucial for support and legitimacy. Our government got it wrong in 2003.’ Clegg takes over the running: ‘This couldn’t be more different to Iraq. We have to make a judgement as leaders. We know a war crime was committed last week, on Wednesday. The French, the Arab League, everyone agrees it was Assad. Yes this process is important, but we have to make a judgement.’ Clegg is furious. ‘I could tell Ed Miliband was thinking this’ll be a good way of absolving his party of Iraq and embarrassing the Liberal Democrats,’ he recalls. ‘He had a choice to do something big or score points, and he chose the latter.’28 The meeting breaks up with Cameron telling his Labour interlocutors: ‘Have a look at the motion – I’ve tried to capture your views in it.’ He is exasperated.

  At 4 p.m., Lyall Grant calls in from the UN with bad news. The Russians will indeed vote against any resolution authorising force against the Syrian regime. ‘I’m not getting anywhere with the Russians,’ he says. The Russian announcement has the effect of ‘killing the idea and foreclosing any further discussion’, in the words of the Los Angeles Times.29 The news, Cameron realises at once, is a game-changer.

  Clegg’s position with his Liberal Democrat colleagues is now in jeopardy: ‘If Labour played the UN card I will lose the whole of the Liberal Democrat Party.’ At 5.25 p.m., Miliband phones Downing Street. ‘I won’t support the motion. I’ve talked to the shadow Cabinet. I will not be supporting the motion. We would need another vote after the inspectors have reported.’ While he is still on the line, Cameron confers quickly with Osborne, Hague and Young. ‘Whatever we do tomorrow,’ Miliband says, ‘we need to go back to the Commons and have another vote before military action, after the inspections.’ After the call, Cameron turns to his colleagues forlornly. A second vote doesn’t look remotely possible with the timetable the White House is envisaging, with attacks still expected on Friday. It looks like ‘amateur hour’, Osborne says. ‘This won’t end well,’ predicts Hague. ‘Our options are narrowing.’

  Number 10 now learn that Labour will be producing their own amendment. A furious government source tells the press that ‘Number 10 and the Foreign Office think Miliband is a fucking cunt and a copper-bottomed shit. The French hate him now and he’s got no chance of building an alliance with the US Democratic Party.’30 In Cameron’s office, they cannot allow their fury with Miliband to cloud their judgement. ‘Why don’t we incorporate Labour’s amendment into our motion?’ suggests a senior aide. They pause in silence. This would mark a big retreat, by giving Labour everything it is asking for. But their room for manoeuvre has shrunk to almost nil. Hague is supportive of the idea, realising that they are heading towards an ugly showdown in the Commons. Late that evening, given the flaky support from the Conservative MPs and the abandonment of Labour support, they bow to the inevitable. The motion on the following day will no longer be to endorse military action, but merely to condemn the chemical attack. It further agrees ‘that a strong humanitarian response is required from the international community and that this may, if necessary, require military action that is legal, proportionate and focused on savings lives by preventing and deterring further use of Syria’s chemical weapons’.31 It is clear: a second vote would be needed before any British military action.

  Cameron wakes up on Thursday 29 August to a front page in The Times featuring another YouGov poll suggesting that national support for missile strikes is as low as 22%.32 The poll has a sobering effect on Conservative MPs, who have had little chance to hear the government’s side. Nick Boles comments ‘the national mood shifted in a significant way and those of us who wanted action were taken by surprise’.33 Cameron’s normal 8.30 a.m. meeting focuses on the consequences of a lost vote later that day. Osborne, as so often, provides steel. ‘No,’ he says, ‘we won’t dig in. We’ll just move on.’ He is emphatic: ‘We can compartmentalise it. Put it down to Iraq angst, the House has spoken, move on. We couldn’t carry the country.’ Cabinet follows. In most meetings, few ministers speak. Today, almost everybody does. They all look to Cameron as their leader and are content to accept his judgement backed by the advice from the NSC. The two most sceptical about the proposed intervention are Owen Paterson – who asks a lot of questions, and who pointedly does not say ‘I support this’ – and Theresa Villiers: ‘I feel very unhappy about this,’ she says. The PM cannot claim unanimous support, but is able to say that there is overwhelming support for the more limited motion in Cabinet.

  Shortly after its conclusion, Cameron travels to Parliament to rally his MPs. He sees a succession in his room at the House of Commons: ‘I find it incredible that there were some backbenchers we wanted to see who
could not be found,’ says an irritated aide. Some are won over, many are not. ‘It made a massive, massive difference that people were away during recess,’ recalls Clegg. ‘People weren’t there, they couldn’t talk to each other. We just didn’t have the time, wherewithal and the venue to make the case.’34 Cameron has to abandon any further lobbying to go to the chamber: Osborne, Young and Gove are in the lead continuing the persuasion effort in his absence. Gove, a hawk, regards it as ‘deplorable’ that the Opposition are withdrawing their support.35 He is prominent as an enforcer, revealing qualities and an appetite that make Cameron believe he would make an ideal chief whip. At 2.38 p.m., Cameron stands up to speak in the chamber:

  The question before the House today is how to respond to one of the most abhorrent uses of chemical weapons in a century, which has slaughtered innocent men, women and children in Syria. It is not about taking sides in the Syrian conflict, it is not about invading, it is not about regime change, and it is not even about working more closely with the opposition; it is about the large-scale use of chemical weapons and our response to a war crime – nothing else.36

  Mid-afternoon, a meeting is convened in the chancellor’s room in the Commons. Much anger is directed towards the Conservative MPs opposing them, and towards Miliband personally: ‘Each time we’ve tried to incorporate him, he’s slipped through the noose and makes out he disapproves,’ says one of the team. It’s become clear that they will not have sufficient numbers for the second motion authorising action. But even securing the first motion is looking increasingly unlikely. The stakes are rising. They discuss again how to respond. Osborne’s line is the one that carries the day: ‘accept the verdict and move on’. After the meeting, Osborne bumps into the BBC’s Nick Robinson. ‘We’re not going to be able to do this,’ he tells him.

  At 9 p.m., the team convenes in the PM’s office in the House of Commons. ‘Prime Minister, we are convinced you are going to lose,’ says Casson. ‘Quick and gracious,’ Clegg says. ‘Yes, we should immediately concede,’ Osborne says, ‘there will be no military action and the PM should concede to the will of the House.’ Cameron believes their arguments in the debate have trounced Miliband and Labour, but he is philosophical. ‘He was exhibiting a sense of occasion which is one of his hallmarks under pressure,’ records one present. Cameron takes a piece of paper and writes out the words he will speak immediately after the tellers announce the vote: ‘The House has spoken …’ Some hope remains until the very end. The whips report that Labour numbers have dwindled considerably in the House. But they return for the vote and the day is lost.

  The debate lasts over seven hours. Clegg rounds up for the government at 9.59 p.m., and at 10.30 MPs gather to hear the whips announce the result. It is a defeat for the government motion by 285 to 272, and the Opposition amendment is defeated by 332 to 220. Miliband asks Cameron to assure the House that British forces wouldn’t attack Syria regardless: ‘I can give that assurance,’ Cameron replies instantly. ‘While the House has not passed a motion, it is clear to me that the British Parliament, reflecting the views of the British people, does not want to see British military action. I get that, and the government will act accordingly.’37 Thirty Conservatives vote against the motion, including David Davis, Peter Tapsell and Sarah Wollaston.38 Twenty-six Tories are absent, including Bill Cash and Nadine Dorries.39 Jesse Norman is sacked as a government adviser for failing to support the government.40

  In Cameron’s camp there is dismay, yet also a sober realisation that if they had won the first vote and then lost the second authorising military action, it might have put the government in an even worse position, stringing out the sense of crisis for several more days. They are reeling. ‘I’m depressed. This is a real turning of the page. It’s a different world we are in now,’ says Clegg. ‘It’s been the worst moment of being Foreign Secretary,’ Hague reveals.41 Indeed, officials at the Foreign Office note how much the whole experience takes out of him: ‘He was a changed man when he returned to work in the autumn.’ Hague had been right all along: the decision to go for a parliamentary vote had been a risk – hubristic even. ‘This was meant to be a debate on Syria; it actually turned out to be more a debate on the legacy of Iraq,’ says private secretary Laurence Mann.42 Obama is another target for their ire: they blame him for his prevarication which put them in an almost impossible position. Before they have too much time to mull it over, a message is received that Obama wants to speak to Cameron: ‘Hey brother, I know you had a tough few days. I totally get it.’ This is the president at his most gracious. Deep down, he is conscious that the White House haven’t made it easy for their friend across the Atlantic.

  Anger in the US is widely predicted when, over the following days, the British media try to make sense of what happened. The last time a British government had been defeated on a matter of war in a parliamentary vote was in February 1782, following the British defeat by the US and France at Yorktown in October 1781. The widespread expectation is of a deterioration in Anglo-American relations.

  Obama has been monitoring progress closely in the Oval Office when the news of the defeat comes through. His own anger and dismay are not so much directed at Cameron personally, though he immediately realises that the defeat will make American action much more difficult, perhaps impossible. Obama himself likes Cameron, and admires his fight to secure parliamentary backing. Deep down, Obama’s inherent caution has been kicking in: ‘Our failure made it a bit easier for him to put the brake on his own system,’ reports one insider. Below president/PM level, there is intense frustration in the White House against the British. There is not much personal warmth at these echelons anyway, so when things go wrong, there is little fund of respect or understanding to draw on. Had the vote not been lost, US missiles could have been fired against chemical weapons targets in Syria the following day or early the next week. History would have been different. Assad might not have been emboldened. IS might not have been emboldened. Putin might not have been emboldened. Such things are unknowable. What is known is that on Saturday 31 August, Obama makes a statement announcing that he wants Congress to debate Syria action, a debate that never takes place. Cameron tweets ‘I understand and support Barack Obama’s position on Syria.’43

  In Britain, as expected the headlines on Friday and Saturday are grim, many of them critical of Cameron personally for his bravado and lack of preparation or sense of tactical understanding. ‘From a sleepy summer recess, Cameron has conjured up one of the most spectacular parliamentary defeats in modern political history,’ says the Spectator.44 ‘Cameron humiliated as MPs veto missile strikes on Syria’ is the headline across The Times on Friday.45 ‘There are no modern precedents for a British premier ceding control of foreign and military policy to the Opposition, and only one war in the lifetime of most MPs – Vietnam – saw the US acting without British support’, says Time magazine.46 ‘Shocking and shaming’ is the verdict of The Economist: ‘Far from the first time, Mr Cameron complacently misread the mood of his rebellion-prone party.’ The magazine is critical of many of Cameron’s decisions, including his allowing the ‘sodden cardboard’ Clegg to make the wind-up speech rather than Hague, who is ‘probably Westminster’s best debater’.47

  Hague comes under intense pressure to resign, as Cameron knew he would. There is a wide outcry from Conservative MPs and beyond that someone’s head should roll for such a major debacle and national humiliation. Peter Oborne, the influential right-wing columnist, thinks it ‘shocking’ that neither Hague nor anybody else resigns following the comprehensive shattering of the government’s policy. Just before the vote was declared on Thursday evening, Cameron whispered to Hague, ‘I’m sorry William. I’ve got us into a real pickle this time.’ Hague was looking very glum and physically distressed. ‘I can tell that he is thinking he will have to resign,’ Fall tells Osborne that evening. ‘You will have to go and tell him not to do it.’ Hague himself later says, ‘I needed reassurance and persuasion that I should indeed carry on, despite
the defeat. A key factor was that you generally resign when you are in disagreement with the government, but I was not.’48 Fall is not alone in Cameron’s circle in feeling that Parliament has become increasingly like the US Congress: with the leader unable to rely on his own supporters, he isn’t accountable in the way he once used to be. As Fall walks home late that night, she thinks to herself ‘This is very bad, but it’s not a disaster. We will get through.’

  Craig Oliver and his team in Number 12 immediately get to work on the press. The turn is noticeable by Sunday. The criticism becomes less harsh, and talk of a leadership challenge is nipped in the bud. Cabinet remains firmly around Cameron, the would-be challengers do not chance it, and the Lib Dems are solid. ‘The way Miliband played it brought Clegg and Cameron closer together,’ thinks senior Lib Dem policy aide Julian Astle. ‘They both felt Miliband was playing short-term opportunistic games with a very serious issue.’49 By Monday, the talk in Number 10 is that Cameron is through the worst.50 At the political Cabinet on Tuesday, Cameron comes across as quite chipper. ‘DC was not fazed by the defeat – he was neither chastened nor was he sanguine about it. He was somewhere in the middle,’ notes one participant. To some, he is the ‘teflon PM’.

  One immediate impact is to remove Britain from the top table when dealing with Syria. John Kerry refers to France, which has jets only hours from launching air strikes, as the United States’ ‘oldest ally’, widely interpreted as a deliberate snub to Britain.51 But support for military action against Assad is evaporating. Merkel explicitly rules out any German participation in such a mission, saying on 1 September that there has to be a ‘collective answer’ by the UN to the problem of Assad.52 On 11 September, a significant date, Obama postpones any congressional vote on the military operation. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov suggests that Russia meets with Kerry to try and resolve the crisis bilaterally. After two days of talks at Lake Geneva, both sides agree on 14 September to a ‘Framework for Elimination of Syrian Chemical Weapons’.53 Syria sucks all energy out of the Russian G20, held in St Petersburg. Cameron’s team scramble for a positive story to come out of it, to distract attention from Britain’s diminished role, and alight on British humanitarian aid to Syrian refugees. ‘We’re flying by the seat of our pants, frankly,’ says one of the team.