The home secretary, Theresa May, has refused to rule out sending ground troops to fight Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, but says whatever action the government feels is necessary will have to have parliamentary backing.
May was asked whether she agreed with the views of former army chief Lord Richards that ground troops would be necessary to defeat Isis and that the UK’s current strategy was “woefully insufficient”.
She said: “I think we’ve been clear for some time, and the prime minister has long had the view, that we need to do more in Iraq and Syria if we’re going to defeat Isil, but we’re also very clear that parliament has a role.”
Pressed on whether that could ultimately lead to troops and tanks on the ground in Syria, May said: “I’m not saying it’s one thing or the other. What I’m saying is that we know that we do need to do more.”
Speaking to the US television network NBC on Sunday, David Cameron said the UK should “step up and do more” in the fight against Isis in Iraq and Syria. It is the clearest sign yet that he is committed to sending UK forces to join US-led air strikes in Syria.
“I want Britain to do more,” the prime minister said. “Be in no doubt, we’re committed to working with you to destroy the caliphate in both countries.”
In 2013, the House of Commons voted against military action in Syria and 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 British pilots, embedded with coalition forces, had taken part in bombings of Isis targets in 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 parliament.
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, in which 38 people were killed, including 30 Britons.
In a keynote speech in Birmingham on Monday, Cameron will set out the government’s five-year strategy for tackling extremist ideology, describing it as the “struggle of our generation”.
Cameron will say “the root cause of the threat we face is the extremist ideology itself”, arguing that society needs to understand what makes Islamist extremism so attractive to people in order to prevent it.
Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, May denied that the strategy to tackle extremism would constitute an attack on freedom of speech.
“We’re not talking about curbing free speech,” she said. “We recognise that free speech is one of our values … but what we are saying is that we have to look at the impact that some people have in terms of the poisonous ideology that they are trying to implant in people’s minds, that will lead them to challenge and lead them to undermine the values we share as a country.”
She said that while the strategy would not curb free speech, it would allow action to be taken against extremist preachers. “I’ve excluded more extremist preachers, more hate preachers, from the United Kingdom than any other home secretary before me.”
May argued that only a small part of the government’s approach would include creating new legislation, but said the counter-extremism strategy – which is being finalised but has already been condemned by free speech campaigners – was likely to include powers to take action against individuals or groups who are considered to be espousing extremist views and premises that are regularly being used by extremist groups.
