Today marks the end of summer recess, with MPs returning from their constituencies to parliament. It hasn't been a quiet summer by normal standards; the refugee crisis, Labour's troubled leadership campaign and the first proper stirrings of the EU referendum campaigns have all kept political journalists and some politicians busy. But all that will look like a week spent pointing at fish in Portugal compared to the months ahead. Here are four big themes to watch in parliament's first week back.Helping hand...
David Cameron won't get any time to ease himself back in to work after the summer. Today he is set to lay out his plans to take in as many as 10-15,000 refugees from Syria to MPs. Yesterday, George Osborne suggested that money from the UK's aid budget—which will likely grow in the coming years as it is tied to GDP—could be used to pay for the resettlement and refugees' living costs. Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary and Labour leadership contender who called for Britain to take 10,000 refugees when David Cameron was still refusing to take any extra, welcomed these numbers on the
Today programme this morning. But watch out for a potential challenge to Cameron on where the money for the resettlement is coming from. She expressed concern that using the aid budget could reduce the amount Britain is doing to address the problems overseas which caused this crisis.
...Or iron fist
Though the government has
changed its position on taking in refugees, it remains convinced that military action in Syria could tackle the problem at root. The government has already been engaged in airstrikes against Islamic State (IS) in Iraq, but thus far has been unable to take action over the border in Syria after parliament refused to sanction such a move in 2013. Reports suggest that David Cameron wants to table another vote on military action in Syria for October. But if the left-wing pacifist Jeremy Corbyn becomes Labour leader this Saturday, that may be more difficult, as he is
almost certain to oppose the government on this issue. If David Cameron is to win the vote, given that about 30 Tories could vote against it, he will need to win over hawkish Labour MPs in the coming weeks.
New direction
This Saturday, Labour's long and exhausting leadership contest finally comes to an end, with the party's new boss announced at a conference in London. The party is widely expected to choose hard-left outsider Jeremy Corbyn—though some,
including my colleague Serena Kutchinsky, have argued that Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper could reap the benefits of a well-run late campaign and pip him to the post. If Corbyn takes the job, there are fears that some of his supporters may try to reintroduce a defunct mechanism which requires every MP to be "reselected" to fight the next election. This has been used in the past to weed out MPs opposed to the hard left. Corbyn insists he is opposed to the measure.
Banging on about Europe
The bill which will pass Britain's referendum on EU membership into law continues to progress through parliament, with another key vote today. It will be a tense one for the government; David Cameron could face his first parliamentary defeat since the election. The row is over the application of "purdah" rules—which restrict what the government can say and do in the weeks leading up to the referendum for fear of prejudicing the result. David Cameron originally wanted purdah not to apply. In the face of Eurosceptic opposition, he has backed down and tabled an amendment to introduce it. But where current purdah rules would bar the government from printing material that "deals with any of the issues raised" by the referendum, the government wants to change that to only issues which "directly affect" the vote. This may not be acceptable to eurosceptics, who could vote against the government's changes.
