Politics latest: ‘Bizarre and petty’ row as Westminster reacts to latest UK-US strikes on Houthis | Politics News

Ahead of the last joint military operation against the Houthis on 11 January, there was a rare outbreak of agreement between the Conservatives and the Labour leadership.

Sir Keir Starmer, shadow defence secretary John Healey and Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle were called to Downing Street and briefed in advance of the strikes, shortly after the rest of the cabinet.

Afterwards Sir Keir expressed his support for military intervention to protect ships and personnel in the Red Sea.

While some backbenchers were uneasy about the risk of escalation – the ghosts of past wars in the Middle East looming large – and the Liberal Democrats and SNP called loudly for parliament to be recalled to debate what had happened, that wasn’t Labour’s official position.

Indeed Sir Keir found himself in hot water the weekend afterwards when he was accused of U-turning on a pledge made during his leadership campaign only to support military action if it had been approved by a parliamentary vote in advance; he claimed he only meant in situations with boots on the ground, not airstrikes.

This time around there’s a battle of briefing and counter-briefing between the two parties.

Sky News understands neither Sir Keir nor Sir Lindsay received an advance briefing this time, with shadow minister Karin Smyth telling broadcasters this morning “we don’t know why the government haven’t spoken to us on the usual terms – we would expect them to do that.” 

But Huw Merriman, the government minister put up for this morning’s broadcast round, told Kay Burley he believed that was not correct – as he understood it they “were again given that information in the same way that they were the first time around”.

Both sides are standing by their story.

The key discrepancy seems to be on the timing; while No 10 sources insist both were briefed last night, it doesn’t seem to have been in advance.

We’re expecting some kind of statement from the government in parliament, as we saw last time, to set out more information about what happened to MPs.

But this rather bizarre and slightly petty row over who was informed when this morning is surely going to be damaging to the sense of cross party unity in the national interest we saw briefly flickering a few weeks ago.