Poll: Britons strongly oppose war on Syria

A strong majority of voters in Britain would not want MPs to stage a second Commons vote on military intervention in Syria even if United Nations weapons inspectors confirmed that the August 21 attack on civilians involved chemicals. The ICM survey for The Sunday Telegraph shows that fewer than one in five voters believes Britain should join the United States in strikes on Syria. The results suggest that a Common Vote’s no to UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s call for military action was in line with the public mood and that the Prime Minister would be taking a big risk if he tried a second time to get the support of MPs. Asked what Britain’s policy on Syria should be, regardless of any parliamentary vote, just 19 per cent want the UK to join US-led missile strikes. Nearly half (47 per cent) backs the current policy of providing humanitarian aid to Syrian refugees rather than taking military action. US war threats against Syria have intensified since late August, when the militants operating inside Syria and the country’s foreign-sponsored opposition claimed that over a thousand people had been killed in a government chemical attack on the outskirts of the capital, Damascus. The Syrian government categorically rejected the accusation and said the militants had carried out the false-flag operation to prompt a foreign military intervention in the country. Nevertheless, a number of western countries, including the United States, France, and Britain, quickly started campaigning for war. The survey suggests, however that British voters see Syria as a special case. US opinion polls also show a majority of voters there opposed to any action, while Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, said his country stood ready to "help" Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government in the event of a US attack.