BRITISH involvement in the bombing of Islamic State (Isis) militants in Iraq would be “dangerous and counter-productive,” Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn warned yesterday ahead of a crucial Commons vote.

Prime Minister David Cameron has recalled Parliament for today’s crunch decision over whether to commit British forces to the conflict — with warplanes reportedly already poised to launch airstrikes.

He told the United Nations this week that Britain was ready to play its part in confronting “an evil against which the whole world must unite.”

Mr Cameron claimed that Britain must not be so “frozen with fear” of repeating the mistakes of the disastrous 2003-9 Iraq war.

Mr Corbyn however rejected the PM’s aggressive stance. He said: “I think we should think this through very carefully.

“If we start dropping bombs and it doesn’t work, what then? If the Iraqi army can’t stop Isis, what then?

“Where does it end?”

He pointed out that previous interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya had not been successful in the long term and had “created an atmosphere where an awful lot of young people feel that the West is totally against them and they are prepared to take up arms against the West.

“I suspect this intervention won’t make that a lesser proposition, it will make it a stronger proposition.”

Mr Corbyn’s caution was echoed by hundreds of anti-war campaigners who gathered outside Westminster last night in protest at the planned intervention.

In a statement presented to Downing Street, they said: “While we all reject the politics and methods of Isis, we have to recognise that it is in part a product of the last disastrous intervention, which helped foster sectarianism and regional division.

“It has also been funded and aided by some of the West’s allies, especially Saudi Arabia.”

Mr Cameron said he was “confident” of avoiding an embarrassing repeat of last year’s historic defeat over plans to bomb Syria.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Labour leader Ed Miliband have both confirmed that they would be backing the PM’s call for military action.

CND general secretary Kate Hudson told the Star: “Once again we’re hearing the deafening drumbeats of war.

"Once again there is no legal basis for UK bombing in the Middle East. Once again the government is making it up as it goes along.”

She pointed out that, while the UN has adopted a binding resolution compelling states to prevent their nationals joining jihadists in Iraq and Syria, it has not authorised military attacks.

“The grim atrocities carried out by Islamic State have rightly shocked and repulsed the world. But heaping further atrocities onto Iraq through the murder of civilians, which will inevitably occur through airstrikes, cannot be our answer,” Ms Hudson said.

“What is needed now is urgent humanitarian assistance, political pressure and working with allies in the region to halt the spread of this murderous group: not an illegal bombing campaign which will kill civilians and inflame the situation.”

paddym@peoples-press.com