'A case of kill or be killed' warning as Shropshire's MPs back bombing in Syria

Wrekin MP Mark Pritchard said thousands of people would be murdered by IS militants unless countries such as Britain took decisive action.

All of the region's MPs backed air strikes, which were approved in the House of Commons last night.

Mr Pritchard spoke during the debate to urge Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to "rethink" his opposition to air strikes against IS, also known as Daesh.

He said: "If we don't take on Daesh, more men, women and children – in their hundreds, in their thousands – will continue to be murdered.

"I pay tribute to the pacifists and peacemakers who sit on the benches opposite and the peacemakers on these benches. Their views are both valid and respectable.

"But unfortunately, Daesh are neither peacemakers nor pacifists. They are a brutal, murderous and genocidal enemy that are killing men, women, children and peacemakers – probably at this very hour.

"Whether it is politically or intellectually palatable or not, it is a case, sadly, of kill or be killed."

Following an impassioned speech by MP Hillary Benn during the debate, Montgomeryshire MP Glyn Davies tweeted:

North Shropshire MP Owen Paterson told the Commons: "An absolute priority has to be to remove Daesh. Until we remove Daesh we are all at risk. We are at risk with or without bombing in Iraq, with or without bombing in Syria.

He also said negotiation would not be an option.

"I was in France and saw the stunned reaction of the French populace," he said.

"There is no negotiation with people who gun down people in a restaurant, or take a bomb into a crowded football stadium.

"If we're invited by our severely hurt neighbours the French to bring specialist technology it's a terrible dereliction of duty not to bring that."

Earlier, Shrewsbury MP Daniel Kawczynski has found himself on the losing side of a Foreign Affairs Select Committee vote on potential bombing action in Syria.

Tuesday saw the committee, of which Mr Kawczynski is a member, vote narrowly by four members to three that the Prime Minster had not sufficiently addressed their concerns over military action against Islamic State in Syria.

The committee had published a report in November outlining a number of issues it wanted addressed by the Prime Minister.

However, Mr Kawczynski was one of the three members of the committee who voted in support of the Prime Minister's response to the report, and the issues highlighted.

He said: "I think he has gone a long way to addressing the concerns of the committee."

The Shrewsbury and Atcham MP said the debate during the influential committee's meeting had been the most robust he had taken part in – with the members "split down the middle".

He said: "I have never come across anything like it. Without revealing too much it was a very robust discussion and the committee had very polarising views."

Mr Kawczynski was also present at a meeting of the Conservative Party's 1922 Committee on Tuesday evening.

Prime Minister David Cameron has been widely reported as having urged the members not to side with "terrorist sympathisers" over the vote, but Mr Kawczynski insisted his party leader had not made the comment.

He said: "I can categorically, and I was standing next to Mr Cameron, deny that he used those words. Never did I hear him use that phrase."

Mr Kawczynski has also reiterated his call for action to be taken against Islamic State in Libya, as part of a co-ordinated attack on the organisation.

He said that anything else would risk IS being able to seek refuge in other areas.

He said: "It is going to be like a bash the rat game with them where we go after them in one area and then they pop up in another.

"We need a systematic and uniform approach to ISIL across the region, be it Libya, Syria, Iraq, or any other country they try to take root in."