LABOUR’S Hilary Benn was criticised yesterday after renewing his call for British intervention in Syria — in a speech at a peace forum.

The shadow foreign secretary has already said he supports air strikes if they are approved by the UN security council.

Now he has suggested he would support British action against the Islamic State group in Syria even if it was vetoed by any of the other four permanent countries on the council.

He said: “What if the UN will not or cannot act — then what? Is that an argument for standing on one side? Not in all cases some would argue, including me, as our support for intervention in Sierra Leone and Kosovo demonstrated.”

Turning to Syria specifically, he said the international community had to deal with similar conflicts “before they turn into brutal and bloody civil wars.”

With well over 200,000 people now dead and half the population made homeless, he said: “Let us be honest: in Syria, no-one has taken responsibility and nobody has been protected.”

Mr Benn said Britain now faces legitimate charges of “selectivity and, at times, hypocrisy” for failing to intervene.

But he added: “The argument that just because you have failed to do the right thing everywhere you should not attempt to do the right thing anywhere is one I find profoundly unconvincing.”

Mr Benn made his comments in a speech to an “international peace symposium” organised by Coventry University to coincide with Armistice Day.

Stop the War national secretary Lindsey German said: “It is particularly objectionable that a peace event, in the city of Coventry which was so badly bombed in the second world war, should be the place where Benn makes the case for more war.

“He seems to have learnt none of the lessons of the past. The Western interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and now Syria have worsened terrorism and have created huge numbers of refugees.

“The last thing the people of Syria need is more bombing.”

Mr Benn’s comments are likely though to encourage the Tories to hold a second vote on Syria.

Speaking in Washington on Tuesday, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said: “We will go back to the House of Commons as soon as we’re confident we can win a vote.

“The changes in the Labour leadership have created some uncertainty around the dynamics in the Commons. We’ve got to understand how the numbers will stack up.”