By James Franklin

Southern Daily Echo – 31 August 2013

... Prime Minister David Cameron was defeated in the House of Commons as MPs rejected his motion that military action may be necessary to protect civilians in the war-torn Middle Eastern country ... His motion had said military action may be taken if it was backed up by evidence from UN weapons inspectors, while it also called for t united condemnation of the Syrian government. But following the vote in the House of Commons, which also saw a Labour amendment defeated, he has now abandoned plans for military involvement.

... Hampshire’s ten MPs were split on how to vote ...

VOTED AGAINST

Julian Lewis, Conservative, New Forest East:

"This was a particularly dangerous proposal which was very different from other humanitarian military actions such as Sierra Leone and Kosovo, which I very strongly supported.

"The Prime Minister and the cabinet had already made it clear that they wanted to arm the Syrian rebels, despite the fact that thousands of Al-Qaeda fighters were at the heart of the rebel campaign.

"I was not prepared, in the end, to allow them to achieve the same purpose by responding to a chemical weapons attack which has not even been fixed on the Syrian government."