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Downing Street Denies Abandoning Plans For Syria Airstrikes Vote
Downing Street has denied reports that plans have been abandoned for a Commons vote on UK airstrikes against Islamic state militants in Syria.
The Prime Minister has made it clear he supports extending the RAF mission from Iraq, but the Foreign Affairs Select Committee says it is against the move.
A new report from the committee has warned against further military involvement in the war in Syria until there's a coordinated international strategy to ending the crisis.
Its chair, Crispin Blunt, told Sky News that Vladimir Putin's recent intervention "makes things much more dangerous because there's then the potential for a wider conflict between different forces and what is a Syrian civil war then becomes a wider conflict by accident."
With that in mind a number of Conservative MPs would be likely to join Labour ranks in refusing to back the vote, meaning that a Government victory would be far from guaranteed.
But the alleged u-turn was denied by a spokesperson for Number 10, who said: "The Prime Minister's position has not changed.
"He's consistently said that we would only go back to the House on this issue if there was a clear consensus and that remains the case."
"Meanwhile the Government continues to work to bring the conflict to an end in Syria and we are working closely with our allies to bring this war to an end and give Syria hope for the future."
The RAF's Operation Shader, based at Akrotiri in Cyprus, began in 2014 as a humanitarian mission, flying aid supplies to those fleeing Islamic State. It's since evolved into a combat mission.
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