BRITISH aircraft may already be bombing targets in Syria by the time you read this, after one of the most disappointing, uninspiring Commons debates about war during my lifetime.

That’s partly because it wasn’t a debate about war but “just” the strategic merits of about eight British jets bombing Daesh targets in Syria. Supporters and opponents of bombing were at times making the very same point – Britain’s extra firepower won’t make much difference. And that’s true.

There have been almost 3,000 air strikes against Daesh targets in Syria since September 2014 – 95 per cent by the United States with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar responsible for the rest. This September, France and Russia joined. So any action by Britain’s relatively small fleet of eight jets probably will have little noticeable effect on the self-styled Islamic State.

But that’s not the point. MPs didn’t declare war yesterday – but they did set Britain down precisely that slippery slope and may have taken us to a point of no return. If yesterday had been a debate about war, BBC Radio would have dedicated Radio 5 Live to broadcast the entire day-long debate. They didn’t. If we were facing imminent war, millions rather than thousands would have gathered to protest. They haven’t. The limited action being proposed by David Cameron in Syria has seemed more surgical and less urgent, calamitous and all-out than the full military intervention proposed by Tony Blair 12 years ago in Iraq.

But have no doubt. The enormity of the Commons vote to support bombing cannot be disguised. It represents a choice to take Britain down the tried and failed path of bombing Daesh into submission and to reject the different path of embargoes and diplomatic activity to contain Daesh and cut the lifeblood of arms and cash currently reaching it.

If Cameron had chosen to champion the messy and admittedly near impossible task of inching Syria nearer to peace – he would have taken western nations and Nato in a new direction. He would have broken the cycle of violence where western-led bombing only strengthens the resolve of Daesh and feeds recruitment there – and here, inside Europe.

He would have backed a strategy of containment. Not as sensational as bombing, not as apparently final as war – though like a moor fire the Iraq war was evidently not extinguished but simply spread to more combustible neighbouring states. As the late Professor Wilkinson from St Andrews University said after Iraq, the UK could establish its autonomy in policy terms and redefine the idea of a “good ally” by being able to consider American-led military action and then say: “We’ve thought about it and don’t think it’s a good idea’. Indeed Harold Wilson’s government refused to enter the war in Vietnam in just this way, deciding it was much wiser for Britain to hold back.

But little of this thinking was aired during yesterday’s Commons debate. In places it made horrible listening. And not just because Cameron kept refusing to apologise for his “terrorist sympathisers” slur of yesterday. During the early part of the marathon debate, Jeremy Corbyn was hounded at every turn. When he explained calmly he would not give way to more interventions – because so many backbenchers wanted to speak – Tory MPs just kept baying and hollering as if no one was watching outside the Commons club. Angus Robertson was heard with more respect, though of course he too opposes bombing.

But then the Westminster leader of the SNP has something the Labour leader does not –the unanimous support of his party. Does it really help stop the bombing by pointing that out? Yes, it’s true that if Corbyn had stood his ground and whipped Labour MPs to oppose bombing, a few more might have toed the party line for fear of losing the party whip and potentially their seats. Enough perhaps – with emboldened Tory rebels – to have made the vote look too close for comfort.

But let’s be real. Some Labour MPs have openly and vigorously defied the party whip regardless of the consequences – and even made hostile challenges to Corbyn during yesterday’s debate.

It’s hard to see how a three-line whip would have licked these MPs into line.

Far more important to accept that Corbyn is at one with most Scots over Syria … and perhaps with most British voters.

According to social media analysts TheySay, Cameron’s refusal to apologise about his “terrorist sympathisers” comment enraged Twitter. Analysing 72,483 tweets, they found his approval ratings plummeted from 61 per cent two weeks ago to 41.1 per cent yesterday.

Meanwhile Corbyn’s rankings soared to 58 per cent.

However, MPs voted yesterday, the public realise there is an alternative to air strikes. The world community can end oil and arms sales, support the Kurds and put wholehearted diplomatic efforts behind the Vienna talks for an Assad ceasefire. It may look grim after yesterday’s mockery of a debate in the Commons – but the people’s debate about the cycle of international violence Britain has re-entered has only just begun.