SIR – In April I travelled with the Worcester News to Auschwitz to see where a government gassed its citizens on an industrial scale.

In 2008 I went to Rwanda and in the Genocide Museum saw the record of hideous slaughter after Statesponsored media urged its Hutu citizens to hack its Tutsi citizens to death “like cockroaches”.

This summer I was in Vietnam where US troops and air power were beaten by a Communist guerrilla movement and a US Air Force official argued: “We are going to bomb Vietnam back to the Stone Age.”

I’m a Conservative because I mistrust big government and think its power needs to be scrutinised and held in check.

What can a backbencher do when it looks as if your Government is planning to arm Syria’s rebels?

In my case I joined 80 other colleagues in writing to the Prime Minister to urge that any military involvement in Syria should be preceded by a recall of Parliament if necessary and a vote.

On Wednesday last week as I got off the plane from Ho Chi Minh City clutching my copy of former US Defence Secretary [Robert] McNamara’s book In Retrospect about all the mistakes the US made in Vietnam, I got a call from my whip explaining that Parliament was being recalled on Thursday to vote for UK military action in Syria. I explained I had grave doubts about the achievability of the military objective; the intelligence evidence that the weapons had been used intentionally by Assad and the legal basis for an attack.

I urged trying the UN again.

By the end of Wednesday I was told the Government’s parliamentary motion would now condemn the use of chemical weapons by the regime, call for further UN negotiations, support a legal case for humanitarian intervention, wait for a report by weapons inspectors and a further parliamentary vote before any military action.

On Thursday morning I got a call from Downing Street.

I said I still wanted to see the intelligence case that the regime had deployed the chemical weapons and the legal basis for an attack.

I was then called by the Chancellor who detailed and debated the legal case with me. The JIC published its intelligence assessment.

At noon the Prime Minister met all Conservative colleagues and answered all the questions clearly.

The points raised by constituents had all been tackled. He repeatedly stressed that a second vote would still be needed for military action and that the UN route would be tried exhaustively.

I will continue to press the case for all diplomatic means to be exhausted to prevent further humanitarian disaster and further use of banned chemical weapons in Syria.

In my opinion, the case for military action has not yet been made but nor should it be ruled out, as this takes pressure off the Syrian regime.

That’s why I voted the way I did last week and why I regret Parliament was unable to agree on any motion at all.

HARRIETT BALDWIN

West Worcestershire MP