A senior Tory has accused David Cameron of making up Syria policy “on the hoof”, as the prime minister gave his clearest indication yet that he wanted to extend the British air campaign against Islamic State.

Julian Lewis, the chairman of the defence select committee, described the government’s strategy for combating Isis as incoherent and called on Cameron to present a more considered strategy to parliament.

In a keynote speech in Birmingham on Monday, Cameron is expected to set out the government’s five-year strategy for tackling extremist ideology, warning British would-be jihadists that Isis would “brainwash you, strap bombs to your body and blow you up”.

David Cameron says UK should 'step up and do more' against Isis in Syria Read more

Speaking to US television on Sunday, Cameron said the UK should “step up and do more” in the fight against Isis in Iraq and Syria.

Lewis indicated that Cameron would have a tough job persuading MPs to endorse air strikes against Isis in Syria, rejected by a 2013 vote in the Commons.

Speaking to the BBC’s the World this Weekend, Lewis said: “I think how I vote [on whether the UK should join US-led air strikes over Syria] will depend on whether the prime minister, instead of making this up on the hoof as has been the case I’m afraid up till now, presents parliament with an integrated strategy, approved jointly by the heads of the armed forces, as something that could produce a decisive result.”

Parliamentary authorisation has so far only been given to UK air strikes against Isis in neighbouring Iraq, but on Friday a freedom of information request by the campaign group Reprieve revealed that UK pilots, embedded with coalition forces, had taken parts in missions over Syria.



The defence secretary, Michael Fallon, has been asked to appear before parliament on Monday to explain why these missions were allowed to go ahead without the permission of MPs.

Giving an interview to Meet the Press on NBC on Sunday, Cameron acknowledged that he would need parliamentary approval for further action. But he promised to “destroy this caliphate, whether it is in Iraq or in Syria”, saying: “I want Britain to do more. Be in no doubt, we’re committed to working with you to destroy the caliphate in both countries.”

Cameron and Fallon have made it clear they are considering extending the military air campaign to Syria in the wake of the Tunisian beach massacre on 26 June, which claimed 30 British victims among the 38 dead.

Vital questions about the UK’s involvement in Syria air strikes | Letters from Oliver Miles and Robert Wall Read more

“First of all we are able to take military action in Iraq because we are doing so at the invitation of the legitimate Iraqi government,” said Lewis. “The problem in Syria is that the government here, the British government, doesn’t want to recognise the legitimacy of the Assad regime. But without the approval of the Assad regime there is an entirely different legal situation if we were to start getting involved in military action in Syria.”



According Mark Rowley, the metropolitan police assistant commissioner, the metropolitan police commissioner, at least 700 Britons have travelled to Syria and over half have since returned home where they now pose a significant terrorism threat.







Speaking to Sky News on Sunday, Crispin Blunt, Conservative MP and chair of the foreign affairs select committee, said: “The contribution of the Royal Air Force and the whole coalition operation flying about 5% of the missions now over both Iraq and Syria is not exactly the central contribution to defeating Islamic State.”

He said the current situation had changed completely from 2013, when the vote on whether British forces should conduct airstrikes over Syria took place. “We are now in a totally different situation, where the enemy is wholly different,” he said. “Islamic State – so-called Daesh, Isil, call it what you will – is a profound enemy to us. It is a profound enemy to our civilisation. It is an enemy to the countries that surround it. I would argue it is a very profound enemy to Sunni Islam itself.

“It is, in effect, a civil war within Sunni Islam, and it’s in absolutely everyone’s interests that it is defeated. So the mission should be completely clear, how you would achieve that, and it needs to start with depriving them of control of territory on the ground.”

Former SNP leader and the party’s foreign affairs spokesman Alex Salmond accused Cameron of “breathtaking arrogance” and argued that the case for bombing Syria had simply not been made”.

“Just two days after revelations that UK military personnel have been involved in air strikes in Syria without the approval of Parliament, he is determined to push for further action without first providing answers to serious questions that must be addressed,” said the former first minister of Scotland.

“And the prime minister casually refers to requiring the approval of ‘my parliament’ - when a parliament is for the people, and the House of Commons rejected bombing in Syria two years ago.”

