The UK joined France and the US to bombard Syrian sites linked to the production of chemical weapons, in response to its alleged use in Douma earlier this week. However, this intervention has prompted Russian officials, who back the Syrian regime, to warn of dire consequences for the West. According to reports today, Russia is plotting a destructive wave of cyberattacks against the UK's electrical grids, water supplies, banking systems and NHS databases. Speaking to Andrew Marr on the BBC this morning, Boris Johnson admitted the Russian threat is being taken "very seriously" by the British cabinet.

Marr quizzed the Foreign Secretary on the possibility of an outbreak of war with Russia, as the BBC journalist said the UK-Russian relationship was "as bad as it has ever been". He compared the stand-off between the nuclear powers to the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, which nearly triggered an outbreak of World War 3. Mr Johnson responded: "Look, this is not something we relish, any more than we relish carrying out the strikes in Syria yesterday. "No-one wants to do this, but we have to do it to reinforce the point about chemical weapons. "I went to Moscow in December. We have held out the hand of engagement. "We want to engage with Russia, but I'm afraid the Russians give us every possible signal and evidence that we have to beware of them."

When asked about the immediate threat of a Russian "revenge attack' against the NHS or energy facilities, the Foreign Secretary said: "We have to take every possible precaution. "We know the Russian record on this, not just in Salisbury, but the attacks on TV stations, on critical national infrastructure, on democratic processes. "We have to be very cautious indeed. We do not seek an escalation." He also added that he has not spoken to his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, for a significant period of time, commenting that contacts with the Kremlin have broken down.</s>Jeremy Corbyn has described airstrikes on Syria as legally questionable and accused Theresa May of “trailing after Donald Trump” in an attack that could escalate the conflict.



The Labour leader was responding to the news that the US, UK and France launched airstrikes in Syria early on Saturday morning. Corbyn, who has called for an independent UN-led investigation of last week’s chemical weapons attack, said the prime minister should have sought parliamentary approval before launching the action.

“Bombs won’t save lives or bring about peace,” Corbyn said. “This legally questionable action risks escalating further, as US defence secretary James Mattis has admitted, an already devastating conflict and therefore makes real accountability for war crimes and use of chemical weapons less, not more likely.”

In a press conference on Saturday morning, May said the attacks were “right and legal” and “gave a very clear message to the regime”.

Labour has opposed a strike on Syria since the chemical weapons attack on Douma. On Thursday, Corbyn urged May to remember the lessons of intelligence failures in the build-up to the Iraq war and said: “There has to be a proper process of consultation. Cabinet on its own should not be making this decision.”

Corbyn’s response came as British politicians responded to news of the attack, which involved four RAF Tornado jets alongside French and American forces. The Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, was among the most outspoken critics of the military action, saying the move risks “dangerous escalation”.

The SNP’s leader in Westminster, Ian Blackford, echoed Sturgeon’s views, saying: “We need a plan for peace,”, adding: “A bombing, allegedly a one-off affair, does not aid this.”



Blackford called for the recall of parliament on Saturday for an emergency debate, saying: “It is not acceptable that the prime minister has ploughed ahead without any debate or parliamentary discussion.”

Labour MPs echoed Corbyn’s view. The shadow education minister, Angela Rayner, complained that MPs had been “frozen out” of the decision and questioned the effectiveness of military action.

The MP Alison McGovern said the action had to be part of a “comprehensive strategy to save civilian life” and urged that the aid budget be deployed to the fullest extent.

The Labour backbencher John Woodcock said while May should have consulted MPs, “it was right that the UK joined our allies in action to degrade Assad’s chemical weapon capability”.

Members of other parties questioned the action, with Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable saying: “Riding the coattails of an erratic US president is no substitute for a mandate from the House of Commons. The Prime Minister could and should have recalled Parliament this week.”

The Green peer Jenny Jones asking what would be left of Syria after the bombardment.

Not everyone was critical. Paddy Ashdown, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, came out in support of the prime minister.

Conservative MPs mostly backed the prime minister. The backbencher Nick Boles said the prime minister did not need parliamentary authorisation to protect the national interest.</s>Jeremy Corbyn has attacked the Government for launching “legally questionable” air strikes in Syria.

Prime Minister Theresa May called the Labour leader late on Friday night to discuss the strikes and gave him an updated security briefing.

But the talks failed to persuade Mr Corbyn that launching cruise missiles in response to the chemical weapons attack in Douma was the right course of action.

Despite Russia repeatedly blocking action against Syria through the United Nations, Mr Corbyn called for Britain to go back to the group of world powers to secure a resolution that has Moscow’s backing.

He was written to the Prime Minister to say he believes the strikes were “legally questionable” and said MPs should have been given a vote.

READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon condemns lack of Commons vote on Syria air strike

Labour’s leader in Wales, First Minister Carwyn Jones, struck a different tone in a statement issued following the strikes.

He said: “I spoke with the PM late last night about the action in Syria.

“I offered my support to any intervention that could prevent a further atrocity, but it is vital that any action forms part of a wider long-term plan for the region.”

Downing Street is expected to release a summary of the legal advice given to Mrs May ahead of the decision to join the co-ordinated assault with the United States and France.

Mr Corbyn insisted, however, that the full document must be released as he called for “renewed diplomatic efforts” the bring the conflict in Syria to an end.

In the letter to Mrs May, Mr Corbyn wrote: “I believe that Parliament should have been consulted and voted on the matter. The UK Prime Minister is accountable to Parliament, not to the whims of a US pPresident.

“I believe the action was legally questionable, and this morning the UN Secretary-General has said as much, reiterating that all countries must act in line with the UN Charter.

“You assured me that the Attorney General had given clear legal advice approving the action. I would therefore be grateful if you would publish this advice in full today.”

Russia, the Syrian regime’s most powerful ally, used its veto at the United Nations to prevent an investigation into the attack on the rebel-held town of Douma one week ago. It was the latest in a series of occasions when Moscow has blocked action against Syria during the seven-year civil war.

The Labour leader, however, said the UK must go to the UN to secure a new resolution that has the backing of Russia and the United States along with Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey.

He said an agreement secured in 2013 between then US secretary of state John Kerry and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov on the destruction of chemical weapons in Syria showed an agreement could be reached.

“There is precedent that this process can work, and surely it would have been better to do that than start bombing - and goodness knows what the consequences of the bombing could be,” he said.

READ MORE: Theresa May: Syria air strikes are a warning to Russia</s>The UK has not ruled out launching further airstrikes against Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria if he uses chemical weapons again, Boris Johnson has said. The foreign secretary spoke out after United States president Donald Trump warned Syria that the US was "locked and loaded" to strike again. The UK joined the US and France in striking three sites in Syria in the early hours of Saturday, following a suspected chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburb of Douma a week ago. Johnson admitted the airstrikes would have limited impact long-term, but said he hoped they would deter Assad from using chemical weapons in future. He told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show on Sunday: "We must be honest – this is not going to turn the tide of the conflict in Syria, one can hope that it encourages the Russians to get Assad to the negotiating table in Geneva to get a political process properly going. "We must hope that it is a deterrent and I believe it's been a successful mission, a timely, appropriate and commensurate mission. We can't tell how the Assad regime will respond."

He added: "There is no proposal on the table for further attacks because so far, thank heavens, the Assad regime has not been so foolish as to launch another chemical weapons attack. If and when such a thing were to happen, then clearly with allies we would study what the options were."



Speaking about the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury, Johnson said it was "quite extraordinary" and showed a "blindness to reality" to not accept Russia's role in the incident. He also referred to the hacking of Yulia Skripal's phone by Russia.

On the same show, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was also asked about Trump's "locked and loaded" warning.

 "President Trump has a way with words, that's for sure," he said. "I hope it's just exaggeration on his part." Corbyn said Parliament should have been given a vote ahead of the strikes. Prime minister Theresa May is coming to the Commons on Monday to face questions from MPs over her decision. "I think what we need in this country is something more robust like a War Powers Act so that governments do get held to account by parliament for what they do in our name," Corbyn said.

He said he would only back military involvement in Syria if there was "UN authority behind it", adding: "If we could get to a process in the UN where you get to a ceasefire, you get to a political solution, you then may well get to a situation where there could be a UN force established to enforce that ceasefire. That surely would save a lot of lives."

 But critics of this approach have pointed out that Russia, an ally of Syria and a permanent member of the UN Security Council, has continually blocked independent investigations into attacks in Syria. On the Peston On Sunday show, Cabinet Office minister David Lidington said that the government followed the accord set by Tony Blair in 1998 before the humanitarian military action in Kosovo.

On the same show, Labour's shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry was asked repeatedly whether a Labour government would ever support military action where there was a humanitarian need and when a country such as Russia would veto diplomatic solutions. "What we do need to do is make sure we get as a big a coalition across the world as possible. It cannot be Donald Trump and a couple of allies deciding unilaterally that they will act on this, when the OPCW hasn't even had time to make a decision," she said.</s>
• Theresa May prepares for a crunch Commons vote on Syria after she authorised air strikes against the regime.
• Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will seek a vote at the end of an "emergency debate" on the issue.
• The UK government is leaving the door open to support future strikes against Assad.
• Significant numbers of Labour MPs set to rebel against their leader.

LONDON — Theresa May has put her MPs on alert for a crunch vote on the UK's involvement in Syrian air strikes after the Labour party signaled that they will attempt to force a vote in the Commons.

The prime minister authorised strikes against chemical weapons facilities in Syria in the early hours of Saturday morning without first seeking the consent of parliament.

The decision was a breach of recent historical parliamentary convention which holds that MPs must be given a vote on military action by the UK.

The Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will on Monday push for a vote on the action at the end of a planned "emergency debate" on the issue called by the government this afternoon.

Corbyn opposes the current action by the US, UK and France and insists that any future intervention should only go ahead with the approval of the UN — where Russia holds a veto.

"Saturday's attack on sites thought to be linked to Syria's chemical weapons capability was both wrong and misconceived," the Labour leader writes in the Guardian today.

"It was either purely symbolic — a demolition of what appear to be empty buildings, already shown to be entirely ineffective as a deterrent — or it was the precursor to wider military action. That would risk a reckless escalation of the war."

However, in a statement to MPs May will insist that the government could not "wait to alleviate further humanitarian suffering caused by chemical weapons attacks."

"Let me be absolutely clear: we have acted because it is in our national interest to do so," she will add.

"It is in our national interest to prevent the further use of chemical weapons in Syria - and to uphold and defend the global consensus that these weapons should not be used.

"For we cannot allow the use of chemical weapons to become normalised - either within Syria, on the streets of the UK or elsewhere."

The Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson on Sunday left the door open for future strikes against Syria, should Assad use chemical weapons again.

Conservative MPs have been put on a "three line whip" to attend today's debate under the expectation that Labour and other opposition parties will force a vote.

The decision on whether to hold a vote will be taken by the Commons speaker John Bercow. May is likely win any vote that is held with a significant number of Labour MPs likely to support the government in opposition to Corbyn's anti-war position.</s>Jeremy Corbyn today demanded a 'war powers' law to ban the Prime Minister from taking military action without a Commons vote.

The Labour leader also made clear he does not accept that the strikes on Syria by the UK, US and France were legally justified on humanitarian grounds.

And Mr Corbyn insisted he would never countenance military action without a UN resolution - even though Russia has the power to veto them.

The comments - which will fuel deep splits within Labour - came amid a huge political row over Theresa May's decision to join reprisals against Bashar Assad over his use of chemical weapons.

Speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr show, Mr Corbyn said: 'I think what we need in this country is something more robust like a War Powers Act so that governments do get held to account by Parliament for what they do in our name.'

The Labour leader warned of an escalation in a 'proxy war' between the US and Russia.

He said chlorine has been used by 'a number of parties in the conflict' in Syria as a weapon.

Mr Corbyn said that if Britain wants to 'get the moral high ground around the world' it must abide by international law for taking military action.

He said the humanitarian grounds used by the UK to justify strikes was 'debatable'.

'Where is the legal basis for this?' he said.

Asked if there were any circumstances in which he would back air strikes in Syria, Mr Corbyn replied: 'I can only countenance involvement in Syria if there is a UN authority behind it.

'If we could get to a process in the UN where you get to a ceasefire, you get to a political solution, you then may well get to a situation where there could be a UN force established to enforce that ceasefire. 'That surely would save a lot of lives.'

Boris Johnson today said failure to response to the Syrian regime's use of illegal chemical weapons against his own people would have undermined 'civilised values'.

But amid fears of revenge attacks by Russia, the Foreign Secretary stressed there was no intention of getting more deeply involved in the Syrian civil war.

The US, UK and France hailed their missile strikes in the early hours of yesterday morning as having successfully degraded the capability of Assad to deploy chemical weapons.

Some 75 people, including children, are said to have died when the Syrian regime used chlorine gas and another nerve agent in Douma last Saturday.

After ordering military action for the first time since entering No 10, a grim-faced Mrs May used a 9am Downing Street press conference to insist 'limited and targeted' bombing was the 'right thing to do' to stop the use of banned chemical weapons.

The military action passed off without UK casualties or any of the Russian forces on the ground being hit.

But there are over a Russian cyber backlash that could see vital services in Britain including water supplies, gas networks, banks, hospitals and air traffic control affected in retaliation for the strikes.</s>Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption 'Absolute evidence' needed in Salisbury poisoning case

Jeremy Corbyn wants to see "incontrovertible evidence" before blaming Russia for the poisoning of an ex-spy and his daughter in Salisbury.

The Labour leader said it was "clear" the nerve agent used was "very similar" to those made in Russia - and Moscow should be challenged about this - but "absolute" proof was still needed.

He also said the international chemical weapons watchdog needed greater powers.

Boris Johnson said to deny Russian involvement was "quite extraordinary".

Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found slumped on a park bench in Salisbury on 4 March.

The government says they were exposed to a military-grade nerve agent belonging to the Novichok group, and accuses Russia of being behind the poisoning. Russia denies any involvement.

On Sunday, the Bishop of Salisbury called for a deeper and lasting solution to the diplomatic fallout between the UK and Russia, during a service of cleansing in the city centre.

'Appalled and alarmed'

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has said it agrees with the UK's findings on the identity of the nerve agent.

The UK's national security adviser has since said that Russian intelligence agencies targeted Ms Skripal's emails as early as 2013, and that Moscow trained "special units" to use nerve agents.

In a letter to Nato, Sir Mark Sedwill also accused Russia of testing assassination methods with chemical weapons, including using nerve agents smeared on to door handles.

When asked on the Andrew Marr Show what it would take for Mr Corbyn to agree that the Russian state had committed the attack, he said: "I want to see incontrovertible evidence of it.

"I am appalled and alarmed at the idea that anyone would use this nerve agent and clearly it was an attempt to murder the Skripals on British soil.

"Sadly it's not the [OPCW's] job to identify who made it or necessarily where it was made. I think we do need to strengthen the role of the OPCW in the future."

When asked whether he agreed with Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell that the poisoning was a state-sponsored assassination attempt, Mr Corbyn said: "If we're going to make a very clear assertion like that we've got to have the absolute evidence to do it."

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Denial of Russian involvement in Salisbury poisoning is "perplexing", says Boris Johnson

Mr Johnson, also speaking to Andrew Marr, said: "To continue to deny the likelihood of Russian involvement, of a state-sponsored assassination attempt, I think is quite extraordinary."

He added that it was a "blindness to reality that I find very perplexing, a defiant refusal to accept the Kremlin was responsible for this".

Image caption Sergei Skripal remains in hospital but his daughter Yulia has been discharged

The Skripals are thought by police to have come into contact with the nerve agent on the front door handle of their home in Wiltshire.

The Skripals and Det Sgt Nick Bailey - who was exposed to the Novichok when he was tending to the Skripals - were all treated at Salisbury District Hospital.

The police officer and Ms Skripal, 33, have been discharged. Mr Skripal is "still seriously ill" but his condition is said to be improving.

Areas of the city were cordoned off as special investigators collected samples to test for the nerve agent.

Blessing the city

On Sunday, the Bishop of Salisbury hosted a "service of cleansing and celebration" to symbolically reclaim the city for the common good.

The Right Rev Nicholas Holtam said: "It's a service in which we want to thank the community that have really carried Salisbury through this.

"For some it's had an impact in a whole variety of ways, it's had an impact on business, it's had an impact on people's mental health."

Following the service, clergy blessed the city, near the spot where the Skripals were found.</s>There was something bleakly comical about Diane Abbott’s response to the question. Asked repeatedly by the BBC’s Nick Robinson on Friday’s edition of Radio 4’s Today programme whether there were any circumstances in which the Labour Party would consider supporting military action, the shadow home secretary answered “the Second World War”.

Be reassured, then, that if some glitch in time should occur, Abbott, Jeremy Corbyn and their front-bench colleagues will stand four square behind the effort to end Adolf Hitler’s murderous campaign.

The subject under discussion on Friday was Syria, where the forces of President Bashar al-Assad have carried out yet another chemical weapon attack on innocent civilians.

Abbott’s position was that there was no military solution to the situation in Syria, where seven years of civil war has seen Assad unleash brutal strikes on non-combatants.

Prime Minister Theresa May, along with US President Donald Trump and France’s President Emmanuel Macron, made it abundantly clear they disagree with this view, when, early yesterday, allied forces carried out a series of bombing raids, targeting three chemical weapons sites. Missiles struck a scientific research facility, alleged to have been used in the production of chemical and biological weapons, in the capital, Damascus, along with two other sites near the city of Homs.

The political backlash is predictable and perfectly understandable. Labour – along with the SNP – had demanded that parliament be given a vote on whether the United Kingdom should get involved in military action.

May was perfectly entitled to make the commitment she did without consulting MPs, though, given the House of Commons had a say on previous occasions when the matter of intervention in Syria arose, members may be forgiven for feeling the same courtesy should have been extended on this occasion. They believe a precedent was set by a Commons vote in 2013 when Labour, under Ed Miliband, led opposition to action and defeated David Cameron’s government, which was then in favour.

The Prime Minister’s decision to commit UK service personnel to yesterday’s bombing raids plays into her opponents’ hands. How could it not? She has, unavoidably, given weight to a narrative that says this is a reckless, warmongering government.

Looming over the Prime Minister’s decision, as it has over every decision on military intervention for the past 15 years, is the Iraq War.

The backlash against former prime minister Tony Blair over flawed intelligence used to justify action in 2003 chills the blood of those who follow in his political footsteps. On matters military, Iraq slows each political impulse down to indecision.

This being so, the Prime Minister’s decision not to seek parliament’s approval is not entirely surprising.

May has, however, denied us the opportunity to see both sides of the argument on action properly interrogated. This may not have been entirely comfortable for those against.

Abbott is not the loose cannon of caricature, she is a key member of the Labour front bench. There are those who regard her interview on Today as something of a car crash, but she did not say anything that we would not have expected to hear from her leader.

A parliamentary debate in which Corbyn gave a greater insight into precisely when it is, in his opinion, morally correct to intervene militarily would have been instructive, I’m sure.

If we accept – and some conspiracists, egged on by Russian propagandists, don’t – that footage of suffering children and dead families in Douma is genuine then pointing to Iraq as a reason not to act is surely not an adequate response.

Corbyn’s reluctance to support military action in Syria is entirely in keeping with his track record on intervention by the West. He was, after all, chairman of the Stop the War coalition from 2011 until his election as Labour leader in 2015.

That organisation, established by – among others – members of the far left Socialist Workers Party, exists to condemn any and all interventions by western governments. You will not, however, find many Stop the War campaigners outside the Russian embassy this weekend, protesting about Vladimir Putin’s support for Assad.

When the Prime Minister returns to the Commons tomorrow, many on her own side of the House will be as angry as the opposition that they were not invited to vote on whether the RAF should have joined US and French forces yesterday.

Within hours of the strikes in Syria, the SNP’s Westminster leader, Ian Blackford, set the tone for what is to come when he said the PM was “dancing to the tune of Donald Trump”.

We can, I think, expect more heat than light in parliamentary exchanges to come. This seeming inevitability would be deeply unfortunate. The UK’s involvement in yesterday’s limited action cannot be undone. What we need to know now is where, precisely, the Prime Minister believes this all leads.

Does she expect the bombing raids to bring conflict in Syria closer to some kind of peaceful resolution and, if not, then what next? Was this a one-off intervention or are more likely?

I fear that, rather than moving towards a bigger picture, the political debate will be ugly and accusatory.

Being “right” about the Iraq War does not automatically make one right to argue for no involvement in Syria. The two situations are different and – as Theresa May re-iterated yesterday when she said regime change was not the intention – so are the objectives.

Corbyn was unimpressed, declaring the strikes “legally questionable” and insisting that Britain should be playing a “leadership” role to bring about a ceasefire in Syria. Abbott didn’t go off-piste on the Today programme, after all.

Corbyn’s response to the strikes on three facilities involved in the preparation of chemical weapons was unsurprising. Under his management, Labour’s view on military intervention is that the West is always in the wrong. Except, I’m sure, in the case of the Second World War.</s>The UK joined France and the US to bombard Syrian sites linked to the production of chemical weapons, in response to its alleged use in Douma earlier this week. However, this intervention has prompted Russian officials, who back the Syrian regime, to warn of dire consequences for the West. According to reports today, Russia is plotting a destructive wave of cyberattacks against the UK's electrical grids, water supplies, banking systems and NHS databases. Speaking to Andrew Marr on the BBC this morning, Boris Johnson admitted the Russian threat is being taken "very seriously" by the British cabinet.

Marr quizzed the Foreign Secretary on the possibility of an outbreak of war with Russia, as the BBC journalist said the UK-Russian relationship was "as bad as it has ever been". He compared the stand-off between the nuclear powers to the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, which nearly triggered an outbreak of World War 3. Mr Johnson responded: "Look, this is not something we relish, any more than we relish carrying out the strikes in Syria yesterday. "No-one wants to do this, but we have to do it to reinforce the point about chemical weapons. "I went to Moscow in December. We have held out the hand of engagement. "We want to engage with Russia, but I'm afraid the Russians give us every possible signal and evidence that we have to beware of them."

When asked about the immediate threat of a Russian "revenge attack' against the NHS or energy facilities, the Foreign Secretary said: "We have to take every possible precaution. "We know the Russian record on this, not just in Salisbury, but the attacks on TV stations, on critical national infrastructure, on democratic processes. "We have to be very cautious indeed. We do not seek an escalation." He also added that he has not spoken to his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, for a significant period of time, commenting that contacts with the Kremlin have broken down.</s>
• Theresa May prepares for a crunch Commons vote on Syria after she authorised air strikes against the regime.
• Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will seek a vote at the end of an “emergency debate” on the issue.
• The UK government is leaving the door open to support future strikes against Assad.
• Significant numbers of Labour MPs set to rebel against their leader.

LONDON – Theresa May has put her MPs on alert for a crunch vote on the UK’s involvement in Syrian air strikes after the Labour party signaled that they will attempt to force a vote in the Commons.

The prime minister authorised strikes against chemical weapons facilities in Syria in the early hours of Saturday morning without first seeking the consent of parliament.

The decision was a breach of recent historical parliamentary convention which holds that MPs must be given a vote on military action by the UK.

The Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will on Monday push for a vote on the action at the end of a planned “emergency debate” on the issue called by the government this afternoon.

Corbyn opposes the current action by the US, UK and France and insists that any future intervention should only go ahead with the approval of the UN – where Russia holds a veto.

“Saturday’s attack on sites thought to be linked to Syria’s chemical weapons capability was both wrong and misconceived,” the Labour leader writes in the Guardian today.

“It was either purely symbolic – a demolition of what appear to be empty buildings, already shown to be entirely ineffective as a deterrent – or it was the precursor to wider military action. That would risk a reckless escalation of the war.”

However, in a statement to MPs May will insist that the government could not “wait to alleviate further humanitarian suffering caused by chemical weapons attacks.”

“Let me be absolutely clear: we have acted because it is in our national interest to do so,” she will add.

“It is in our national interest to prevent the further use of chemical weapons in Syria – and to uphold and defend the global consensus that these weapons should not be used.

“For we cannot allow the use of chemical weapons to become normalised – either within Syria, on the streets of the UK or elsewhere.”

The Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson on Sunday left the door open for future strikes against Syria, should Assad use chemical weapons again.

Conservative MPs have been put on a “three line whip” to attend today’s debate under the expectation that Labour and other opposition parties will force a vote.

The decision on whether to hold a vote will be taken by the Commons speaker John Bercow. May is likely win any vote that is held with a significant number of Labour MPs likely to support the government in opposition to Corbyn’s anti-war position.
UK Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn of Labour asks to see "incontrovertible evidence" before accepting Russia was responsible. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson responds, saying it is "quite extraordinary" to question Russian involvement.