Shadow foreign secretary says Labour may support government but will not write 'blank cheque'
David Cameron has not yet set out enough legal reasons for Britain to take military action in Syria, Labour has said.
Douglas Alexander, the shadow foreign secretary, said Labour would not write a "blank cheque" of support and urged the government to make the case for an intervention in parliament.
There are signs western allies could be preparing to launch action against Bashar al-Assad's Syrian regime, after the US said it was "undeniable" that chemical weapons had been used in Damascus.
Parliament is likely to be recalled this week and the prime minister is cutting short his holiday in Cornwall before a meeting of the national security council on Wednesday.
Cameron is not obliged to consult MPs before ordering military action but Labour called on him to set out the legal basis behind any possible intervention.
"There are very legitimate issues of real concern which I think we've got an obligation to be asking the government in these critical days," Alexander told BBC News.
"I'm not ruling out the possibility that Labour could support the government, but I'm certainly not prepared to write the government a blank cheque."
He said there were still big questions that needed to be answered in advance about the legality, strategic objectives and extent of international help.
"We don't know the legal basis on which the government would seek to be acting," he said. "We don't know the international support that it would be seeking to galvanise."
He did not rule out Labour giving its backing to military intervention without a UN resolution. Britain, France and the US will struggle to achieve this while Russia still supports Syria.
Downing Street will soon make a final decision on whether to recall parliament, which is not due to meet in formal session until Monday.
A meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) on Wednesday is expected to discuss the findings of the UN weapons inspectors after their visit to Mouadamiya, where the suspected chemical weapons attack took place.
Government sources, who had said parliament would be recalled only to approve military action, indicated that MPs would now be given a chance to debate the recent developments.
A recall of parliament would allow Cameron to make a statement to MPs, possibly after the meeting of the NSC on Wednesday.
A number of backbench MPs have urged the prime minister to have a full debate in the House of Commons.
Adam Holloway, a Tory MP, said he still did not know whether there was a "clear purpose for intervention" based on the UK's national security interest.
"What's the strategy here?" he said on BBC Radio Four's Today programme. "Reaction to horror is not a strategy. I would be completely up for a military attack if we could predict what the end state would be, if we knew that a limited strike of the kind that is being described here was going to bring people to the negotiating table … But I don't know what the end state to this reaction is and apart from remaining with our dear friends the Americans, I don't know what the UK national security interest is. I mean, can someone tell us?"
Julian Lewis, one of the leading Tory critics of military action on the grounds that it would end up helping al-Qaida forces in Syria, said he could support a limited strike to punish the Syrian regime for using chemical weapons.
Lewis told the Guardian on Monday: "If we can be satisfied that the Syrian government has carried out this atrocity using sarin gas there is an argument to be made for some sort of surgical military punishment strike to show the regime that such behaviour will not be tolerated in the 21st century. It sounds like what is being suggested is something similar to what was done against [Muammar] Gaddafi in 1986, when we facilitated the Americans bombing Libya in response to an outrage. It is generally agreed that from that time onwards, despite a lot of protests, Gaddafi started to mend his ways."
