Keir Starmer welcomes fall of Assad’s ‘barbaric regime’ in Syria

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner earlier told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme that the UK wanted to see “a political solution along the lines of UN resolution, and we’re working with our allies”.

Asked if HTS would be better than Assad, Rayner said “we’ve got to have a government in Syria, a political solution, that protests civilians and infrastructure”.

The Islamist group, set up 13 years ago as a direct affiliate of al-Qaeda, drove the rebels’ rise to power in Syria in recent weeks.

It previously publicly broke ranks with al-Qaeda, although it remains proscribed as a terrorist group by the UK, as well as the UN, the US, Turkey and other countries.

Questions remain over whether it has completely renounced those links, but its message in the run-up to Assad’s deposition has been one of inclusiveness and a rejection of violence.