LABOUR MPs threatening to defy the whip to back air strikes in Syria do not have the support of most party members, a poll revealed yesterday.

Some 64 per cent of 2,500 supporters surveyed by Labour List still oppose military action in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks.

The result is a huge boost to leader Jeremy Corbyn as he seeks to quell a rebellion of up to 60 by Blairite hawks.

Yesterday, Chuka Umunna became the latest to suggest that he would rebel, saying Labour MPs should put their own principles above party loyalties.

Up to 60 Labour MPs, including front-bench figures, are prepared to help the government win a vote on bombing.

Mr Corbyn insists, though, that Labour will not back action without a United Nations mandate and will launch a staunch defence of his position today in a speech at the party’s south-west regional conference.

He will say that Britain must break with US foreign policy to form “a more independent relationship with the rest of the world. A relationship where war is a last resort.

“For the past 14 years, Britain has been at the centre of a succession of disastrous wars that have brought devastation to large parts of the wider Middle East,” he will add.

“They have increased, not diminished, the threats to our own national security in the process.”

Mr Corbyn will also call on his MPs to “focus everything” on demonstrating that Labour has a “viable and credible alternative,” insisting that he is “convinced we can build a coalition of electoral support that can beat the Tories in five years’ time.”