Jeremy Corbyn still seeking to persuade Labour MPs to stick with him

Jeremy Corbyn is having one-on-one meetings with MPs who are thinking of rebelling to try to pull then back. He’s focusing on new intake MPs, and pro-military action Labour MPs think their total rebel numbers are now down to 50 or so.

They include big names, but the leadership will be glad it’s got the rebels down to less than a quarter of the Parliamentary Labour Party, if that’s where things end up.

The rebel camp will say this is the smallest they will be, as some accept this is the toughest terrain on which to fight post-Iraq.

All of that still gives the government a majority of 100-plus, given the expectation of no more than around a dozen Tory rebels. But there was a time, a week ago, when that could’ve been a majority of 200, or so it seemed.

Pressure from the Left, some less-than-great government briefings, the PM’s own loose tongue on “terrorist sympathisers” have all helped to push the rebellion down.

Polling probably helps as well, though it’s important to mention that even with momentum (that word again) moving in the anti-war side’s direction, the same poll they’re quoting puts them some 10 million votes or so behind the pro-military strikes side.

Follow @GaryGibbonBlog on Twitter