Michael Fallon confident ‘more and more’ MPs will back air strikes in Syria

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said the Government will make the case for air strikes against IS in Syria by highlighting the “illogicality” of only attacking them across the border in Iraq.

He said he is confident “more and more” MPs will question that anomaly as the argument is set out in the coming weeks.

Mr Fallon said: “It is up to every MP to make up their minds and to consider how illogical it is for the RAF to be striking at Iraq but are not yet able to strike Isil in Syria.

“We saw just how close this Isil terrorism has now come to us, just two hours away, in the awful events in Paris last week.

“A British citizen was killed there. Thirty of our British citizens, holidaymakers, were killed on a beach in Tunisia.

“Isil is a threat to us as much as to France.”

Asked whether it would be a simple case to argue to Parliament, he said: “We have to make the case, we have to set out the arguments, and we will be doing that over the next few weeks.

“But I am confident that more and more MPs will start to question the illogicality of the RAF having to hang back a border that Isil themselves do not recognise.”