Parliament to debate UK participation in Syrian airstrikes

Prime Minister Theresa May will have to face criticism from parliament on Monday after deciding on Friday evening to intervene in Syria by launching coordinated airstrikes with the US and France without having Commons approval.

May will reportedly say that she was “confident in our own assessment that the Syrian regime was highly likely responsible and there was need to alleviate further humanitarian suffering caused by chemical weapons attacks”.

The prime minister is expected to say that the airstrikes were in the UK’s best interest: “Let me be absolutely clear: we have acted because it is in our national interest to do so. 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.”

Even so, May faced a grilling over why she did not seek parliament approval before going through with the mission.

Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn said that the Prime Minister could have delayed the airstrikes until parliament was on board.

"I think what we need in this country is something more robust, like a war powers act, so governments do get held to account by parliament for what they do in our name,” he told the BBC.

On Monday morning, Penny Mordaunt, the international development secretary, said the intelligence on Syria was too sensitive to be seen by MPs. "Outsourcing that decision to people who do not have the full picture is, I think, quite wrong," she said on BBC radio.