Anna Soubry said the situation in Syria would be better if Britain had bombed it

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Anna Soubrey, who is now small businesses minister, said Britain "made a very, very big mistake" by voting against military action in Syria in 2013.

Mayor of London Boris Johnson also hinted at the Government now considering taking action in the war-torn country.

Ms Soubrey told the Daily Telegraph: "The huge difficulty we have in Syria continues and nobody talks about the fact Assad is ultimately responsible - people are leaving his country because he has chosen to be a barbaric ruler.

"It's too easy to blame the EU and the Government when we should be saying, 'Let's get back to the root cause, and that is Syria'.

"We've made it very clear - we put a motion in Parliament to keep our options open on Syria and Parliament very foolishly voted against that motion. We made a very, very big mistake when that motion failed."