A sombre George Osborne has just popped up on the Today programme saying that parliament last night triggered ‘soul searching’ in the country.
‘I think there will be a national soul-searching about our role in the world and whether Britain wants to play a big part in upholding the international system, be that big open and trading nation that I’d like us to be or whether we turn our back on that.’
This rather tendentious logic is partly why Cameron lost the vote last night: MPs were debating whether to fire missiles into Damascus, not end free trade. Attempts to spin the vote into something it wasn’t is what rubbed so many MPs up the wrong way, reminded people of Iraq and inspired them to rebel.
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