A former public schoolboy who has joined the fight against Islamic State militants has told Sky News he is prepared to die for the cause.
Macer Gifford gave up a job in the City to sign up with Kurdish fighters battling IS in northern Syria.
He said: "People seem to be utterly crippled by fear of the Islamic State, their use of social media, the brutal executions they're putting online. It's driving people into inaction. Sometimes you have to say 'enough is enough'."
Mr Gifford, who is from Oxford and was a Young Conservative, left Britain in December to join the Kurdish People's Protection Units, known as the YPG.
The 28-year-old has since posted photos to his social media accounts posing with heavy weapons and vehicle-mounted machine guns.
He says he will stay until IS has been defeated - and describes conditions on the front line as very much like those during the First World War.
"There are entrenched positions, highly-defended positions," he said. "So, for the past three-and-a-half weeks I've been staring at the Islamic State more than I've been fighting them."
Mr Gifford says he hopes his presence will help show Kurdish fighters that they have not been forgotten.
"I'm shining a light on what's going on out here. I'm showing the Kurds that they're not alone, that people in the West do support them and that they're willing to come out and help them in any way they can."
He says he is prepared to die for his cause, adding: "I believe in freedom. I believe in democracy. I'm willing to put my life on the line to go out and fight."
And he insists that his situation is different from that of young Britons who travel to Syria and end up part of the Islamic State.
"There's a huge difference... young Brits are going there without a clue who they're joining and it's only when they get there that they figure out, 'oh my God, some of the people around me are taking the wrong route.'"
Mr Gifford is not the first Briton to join Kurdish troops. Former soldiers Jamie Read and James Hughes went to Syria and fought alongside Kurdish forces in Kobani in December, after IS filmed the brutal killing of British and American aid workers.
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