This might be why British people are split on attacking Isis

British people are divided over whether the RAF should take part in air strikes against the Islamic State (also known as Isis).

According to the poll of 1,676 adults by YouGov between 10-11 August 2014, 37 per cent said they would approve of strikes - while 36 per cent said they would not. America began targeted air strikes over northern Iraq on Friday evening.

Conservative voters and UKIP voters were slightly more likely to approve of any action.

One thing that might explain the split: the survey also shows that the majority of people believe government intervention in Afghanistan and Libya probably made things worse in the long term, while the government's lack of intervention in Syria made no difference either way.

In the charts below we've paraphrased the questions YouGov asked, you can read them in full here. All numbers are in percentages.

Despite the split over air strikes, the vast majority of British people (72 per cent) support emergency air drops of humanitarian aid.

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