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Britain has landed itself in a "constitutional mess" in the wake of the summer vote against military action in Syria, in which the Commons can be guaranteed to back intervention only to defend the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar, according to a former Foreign Office minister.
In his first interview on the Syrian crisis since losing his ministerial post in the autumn reshuffle, Alistair Burt said the failure of MPs in August to back the principle of military action against the Assad regime for the use of chemical weapons had left the mainstream opposition forces "absolutely devastated".