Julian Murray Lewis (born 26 September 1951) is a British
Conservative Party
The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right.
Political parties called The Conservative P ...
politician serving as the
Member of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
(MP), representing
New Forest East since
1997
File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...
.
Lewis has served as Chair of the
Intelligence and Security Committee
The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC) is a statutory joint committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, appointed to oversee the work of the UK intelligence community.
The committee was established in 1994 by the ...
since 2020, succeeding
Dominic Grieve
Dominic Charles Roberts Grieve (born 24 May 1956) is a British barrister and former politician who served as Shadow Home Secretary from 2008 to 2009 and Attorney General for England and Wales from 2010 to 2014. He served as the Member of Parl ...
.
Lewis served as Chair of the
Defence Select Committee
The Defence Select Committee is one of the Select Committees of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, having been established in 1979. It examines the expenditure, administration, and policy of the Ministry of Defence and its associated pub ...
from 2015 to 2019. He actively pursues the retention and renewal of the British strategic nuclear deterrent, the
UK Trident programme
Trident, also known as the Trident nuclear programme or Trident nuclear deterrent, covers the development, procurement and operation of nuclear weapons in the United Kingdom and their means of delivery. Its purpose as stated by the Ministry of ...
– confirmed in 2016 – and campaigns for Defence expenditure to be restored to 3% of GDP. Lewis had the Conservative Party whip removed after successfully standing against the Government's preferred candidate for the chairmanship of the
Intelligence and Security Committee
The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC) is a statutory joint committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, appointed to oversee the work of the UK intelligence community.
The committee was established in 1994 by the ...
, former
Secretary of State for Transport
The Secretary of State for Transport, also referred to as the transport secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with overall responsibility for the policies of the Department for Transport. The incumbent i ...
Chris Grayling
Christopher Stephen Grayling (born 1 April 1962) is a British Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party politician and author who served as Secretary of State for Transport from 2016 to 2019. He has served as Member of Parliament (United King ...
, on 15 July 2020.
The whip was restored on 30 December 2020.
A
Eurosceptic
Euroscepticism, also spelled as Euroskepticism or EU-scepticism, is a political position involving criticism of the European Union (EU) and European integration. It ranges from those who oppose some EU institutions and policies, and seek reform ...
, Lewis is a supporter of the pro-
Brexit
Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 CET).The UK also left the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or ...
groups
Leave Means Leave
Leave Means Leave was a pro-Brexit, Eurosceptic political pressure group organisation that campaigned and lobbied for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union following the 'Leave' result of the EU referendum on 23 June 2016. The campai ...
and the
European Research Group
The European Research Group (ERG) is a research support group and caucus of Eurosceptic Conservative Members of Parliament of the United Kingdom. The journalist Sebastian Payne described it in the ''Financial Times'' as "the most influential e ...
(ERG). He was one of just 28 Conservative MPs (the 'Spartans') who voted all three times against Theresa May's EU Withdrawal Agreement, regarding it as "Brexit in Name Only".
Education, activism and early career
Born in
Swansea
Swansea (; cy, Abertawe ) is a coastal city and the second-largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Swansea ( cy, links=no, Dinas a Sir Abertawe).
The city is the twenty-fifth largest in ...
, into a
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
family and son of a tailor and designer, Lewis was educated at
Dynevor Grammar School and then at
Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...
, receiving a BA, later promoted to
MA, in Philosophy and Politics. He studied as a postgraduate at
St Antony's College, Oxford
St Antony's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1950 as the result of the gift of French merchant Sir Antonin Besse of Aden, St Antony's specialises in international relations, economic ...
, being awarded the
DPhil
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...
in Strategic Studies for his thesis on "British Military Planning for Post War Strategic Defence, 1942-1947" in 1981.
Militant Tendency infiltration of Labour
From 1976 until early 1978, with secret funding from
The Freedom Association
The Freedom Association (TFA) is a pressure group in the United Kingdom that describes itself as "a non-partisan, classically liberal campaign group, which has links to the Conservative Party and UK Independence Party (UKIP). TFA was founded in ...
, he posed as a
Labour Party moderate and briefly won control of
Newham North East Constituency Labour Party, in an eventually unsuccessful attempt to reverse the deselection of the sitting MP,
Reg Prentice
Reginald Ernest Prentice, Baron Prentice, PC (16 July 1923 – 18 January 2001) was a British politician who held ministerial office in both Labour and Conservative Party governments. He was the most senior Labour figure ever to defect to the ...
, and in order to highlight
Militant Tendency
The Militant tendency, or Militant, was a Trotskyism, Trotskyist group in the British Labour Party (UK), Labour Party, organised around the ''Militant'' newspaper, which launched in 1964. According to Michael Crick, its politics were based on the t ...
entryism in the Labour Party.
Prentice himself later joined the Conservatives.
At the end of the Newham campaign, in 1978, Lewis returned to his DPhil studies and joined the London Division of the
Royal Naval Reserve
The Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) is one of the two volunteer reserve forces of the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. Together with the Royal Marines Reserve, they form the Maritime Reserve. The present RNR was formed by merging the original Ro ...
, at
HMS President
Five ships and one shore establishment of the Royal Navy have been named HMS ''President'', after the office of president meaning "one who presides over an assembly". In the case of the first two British ships, the name may have applied to the L ...
, serving as a Seaman on the Southampton-based
Ton-class minesweeper
The Ton class were coastal minesweepers built in the 1950s for the Royal Navy, but also used by other navies such as the South African Navy and the Royal Australian Navy. They were intended to meet the threat of seabed mines laid in shallow c ...
, .
Combating CND
Lewis was a leading opponent of the
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is an organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United Kingdom, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nucle ...
, and other
Left-wing
Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...
organisations, throughout the 1980s. From 1981 to 1985, he was Research Director and then a Director of the
Coalition for Peace through Security
The Coalition for Peace Through Security (CPS) was a campaigning group founded in September 1981 and active in the UK throughout the early and mid-1980s. It strongly opposed unilateral nuclear disarmament and withdrawal from NATO as advocated by th ...
, set up to support the replacement of Polaris by Trident and the deployment of NATO cruise missiles at
RAF Greenham Common
Royal Air Force Greenham Common or RAF Greenham Common is a former Royal Air Force station in the civil parishes of Greenham and Thatcham in the English county of Berkshire. The airfield was southeast of Newbury, about west of London.
Opened ...
and
RAF Molesworth
Royal Air Force Molesworth or more simply RAF Molesworth is a Royal Air Force station located near Molesworth, Cambridgeshire, England with a history dating back to 1917.
Its runway and flight line facilities were closed in 1973 and demolished ...
, to counter the Soviet
SS-20
The RSD-10 ''Pioneer'' (russian: ракета средней дальности (РСД) «Пионер» tr.: ''raketa sredney dalnosti (RSD) "Pioner"''; en, Medium-Range Missile "Pioneer") was an intermediate-range ballistic missile with a ...
missiles. This helped the achievement of President Reagan's 1981
Zero Option proposal in the form of the 1987
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty, formally the Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles; / ДРСМ ...
.
Changing legislation and Conservative Research Department
From the mid-1980s, Lewis was also Director of Policy Research Associates, working with Conservative and Crossbench members of the House of Lords to initiate changes to legislation (1) requiring postal ballots for trade union elections (incorporated in the 1984 Trade Union Act and 1988 Employment Act); (2) outlawing political indoctrination in schools (incorporated in the 1986 Education Act and carried forward in the 1996 Education Act); (3) prohibiting local councils from publishing material which "promotes or opposes a point of view on a question of political controversy which is identifiable as the view of one political party and not of another" (incorporated in Section 27 of the 1988 Local Government Act); and (4) more strictly defining the concept of 'due impartiality' in the coverage of politically contentious issues on television and radio (incorporated in the 1990 Broadcasting Act).
With fellow Conservative
John Bercow
John Simon Bercow (; born 19 January 1963) is a British former politician who was Speaker of the House of Commons from 2009 to 2019, and Member of Parliament (MP) for Buckingham between 1997 and 2019. A member of the Conservative Party prior to ...
– later elected Speaker of the House of Commons – he ran an Advanced Speaking and Campaigning course for more than ten years, which trained more than 600 Conservatives (including several current MPs) in campaigning and communication techniques.
From 1990 until 1996, Lewis was a Deputy Director of the
Conservative Research Department
The Conservative Research Department (CRD) is part of the central organisation of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom. It operates alongside other departments of Conservative Campaign Headquarters in Westminster.
The CRD has been describ ...
at
Conservative Central Office
The Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ), formerly known as Conservative Central Office (CCO), is the headquarters of the British Conservative Party, housing its central staff and committee members, including campaign coordinators and manag ...
(CCO). In the run-up to the 1992 General Election, CCO published detailed directories compiled by Lewis listing Labour MPs' and candidates' support for Left-wing causes. He continued in this role after his selection in February 1996 as prospective Parliamentary candidate for the new constituency of New Forest East, but in December of that year he resigned from CCO to campaign against Britain joining the single European currency. Only later did opposition to adopting the
Euro
The euro ( symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...
become official Conservative policy.
In a lecture to former Dynevor School pupils in May 2017, Lewis set out details of his background, his path into politics and his overall conclusions about Parliamentary life.
Parliamentary career
He contested
Swansea West at the
1983 general election. As MP for New Forest East, he successfully opposed the development of a large container port at
Dibden Bay, between
Marchwood
Marchwood is a village and civil parish located in Hampshire, England, United Kingdom. It lies between Totton and Hythe on the western shore of Southampton Water and directly east of the New Forest. The population of the village in the 201 ...
and
Hythe
Hythe, from Anglo-Saxon ''hȳð'', may refer to a landing-place, port or haven, either as an element in a toponym, such as Rotherhithe in London, or to:
Places Australia
* Hythe, Tasmania
Canada
*Hythe, Alberta, a village in Canada
England
* T ...
, and waged other high-profile local campaigns. In Parliament, he was a Shadow Defence Minister from 2002 to 2004 and from 2005 to 2010, also serving as Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office from 2004 to 2005, and as an Opposition Whip from 2001 to 2002. Before joining the Front Bench, he was a Member of the Defence Select Committee and the Welsh Select Committee, and had also been elected to the Executive of the Conservative Party's 1922 Committee.
With the creation of the Liberal-Conservative Coalition as a result of the election of a
hung parliament
A hung parliament is a term used in legislatures primarily under the Westminster system to describe a situation in which no single political party or pre-existing coalition (also known as an alliance or bloc) has an absolute majority of legisl ...
in 2010, the post which he had shadowed (Minister for the Armed Forces) was allocated to the Liberal Democrat Defence spokesman,
Nick Harvey
Sir Nicholas Barton Harvey (born 3 August 1961) is a British Liberal Democrat politician. He was the member of parliament (MP) for North Devon from 1992 to 2015 and the Minister of State for the Armed Forces from 2010 to 2012.
Early life an ...
MP. Lewis was appointed as a member of Parliament's
Intelligence and Security Committee
The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC) is a statutory joint committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, appointed to oversee the work of the UK intelligence community.
The committee was established in 1994 by the ...
in September 2010. He has also been a Vice-Chairman of the Conservative Friends of Poland.
Julian Lewis has been described by ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was fo ...
'' as "one of the most vigorous
rightwingers in the
Commons
The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable Earth. These resources are held in common even when owned privately or publicly. Commons ...
" and by ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' as the Conservative Party's "front bench terrier". He was one of the Frontbenchers & Backbenchers of the Year chosen by commentators on the ConservativeHome website, in December 2009 and December 2010 respectively.
His constituency casework has always been carried out by correspondence, telephone and surgery appointments, but not by e-mail, which he describes as "inefficient, insecure and open to abuse".
In May 2014, he was one of eight candidates for the chairmanship of the House of Commons
Defence Select Committee
The Defence Select Committee is one of the Select Committees of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, having been established in 1979. It examines the expenditure, administration, and policy of the Ministry of Defence and its associated pub ...
, coming second with 212 votes to the eventual winner's 226. Lewis had been in the lead in four of the seven stages of this
Alternative Vote
Instant-runoff voting (IRV) is a type of Ranked voting, ranked preferential Electoral system, voting method. It uses a Majority rule, majority voting rule in single-winner elections where there are more than two candidates. It is commonly referr ...
election. He was elected as a member of the Defence Select Committee at a by-election in October 2014, whilst remaining on the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament.
In March 2015, he was appointed to the
Privy Council of the United Kingdom
The Privy Council (PC), officially His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the sovereign of the United Kingdom. Its membership mainly comprises senior politicians who are current or former members of e ...
and therefore granted the style
The Right Honourable
''The Right Honourable'' ( abbreviation: ''Rt Hon.'' or variations) is an honorific style traditionally applied to certain persons and collective bodies in the United Kingdom, the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations. The term is ...
.
In June 2015, he was elected to the Chair of the Commons Defence Select Committee by 314 votes to 242, and in July 2017 he was re-elected to this position, in the new Parliament, by 305 votes to 265. Having supervised more than 30 Inquiries, during the 2015–17 and 2017–19 Parliaments, Lewis made it known in January 2020 that he would not seek re-election to chair the Defence Committee for a third time, as "It is better to stop while people wish you to carry on, than to carry on until people wish you to stop!"
Privacy of MPs' home addresses
From May to July 2008, Lewis initiated and organised the successful campaign to change the
Freedom of Information Act Freedom of Information Act may refer to the following legislations in different jurisdictions which mandate the national government to disclose certain data to the general public upon request:
* Freedom of Information Act 1982, the Australian act
* ...
in order that a High Court ruling, obtained by a journalist on ''
The Sunday Telegraph
''The Sunday Telegraph'' is a British broadsheet newspaper, founded in February 1961 and published by the Telegraph Media Group, a division of Press Holdings.
It is the sister paper of ''The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', kn ...
'', that 14 MPs' home addresses should be published, could never be repeated in respect of any other Parliamentarians. More than 250 backbenchers from all parties, as well as members of the Government and the Shadow Cabinet, supported this campaign.
In March 2009, his amendment to the Political Parties and Elections Bill was carried by a majority of 59. It removed the requirement for general election candidates to disclose their home addresses on nomination and ballot papers, and was upheld by a majority of 72 when the Bill went through the House of Lords in July 2009. In both Houses, Labour and Conservatives were granted Free Votes on the Lewis Amendment, and Liberal Democrats were whipped to vote against it.
Finally, in March 2018, in its response to ''Intimidation in Public Life: a Review by the Committee on Standards in Public Life'', the Government additionally accepted the committee's recommendation that it should "bring forward legislation to remove the requirement for candidates standing as local councillors to have their home addresses published on the ballot paper". That requirement would be replaced by "an option to include a statement of residence based on an electoral area the candidate lives in rather than having to include a specific address".
Expenses
Although Julian Lewis was repeatedly listed as amongst the lowest-claiming MPs (ranked 566th out of 647 in 2008/09), ''
The Sunday Telegraph
''The Sunday Telegraph'' is a British broadsheet newspaper, founded in February 1961 and published by the Telegraph Media Group, a division of Press Holdings.
It is the sister paper of ''The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', kn ...
'' alleged in May 2009 that he had tried to claim the £6,000 cost of a wooden floor in his second home. He maintained that: "At no stage did I claim for the flooring and it did not cost the taxpayer a penny." A senior Commons official confirmed that, by seeking advice in advance about second home expenditure, he had acted "in accordance with best practice as recommended by this department" and that "it is not true that you attempted to claim £6,000 in expenses for a wooden floor at your second home".
Accessibility
Lewis is the only Member of Parliament who does not allow his constituents to contact him by email. In a letter in the ''Guardian'', he stated: "Letters, phone calls, and, where appropriate, surgery appointments are perfectly adequate for people who genuinely need my help, as the many letters of thanks quoted on my website fully confirm. Only mass, manipulative campaigners and obsessive individuals find this a problem – and so they should!"
Selected political issues
In November 2007, Lewis resigned his life membership of the
Oxford Union
The Oxford Union Society, commonly referred to simply as the Oxford Union, is a debating society in the city of Oxford England, whose membership is drawn primarily from the University of Oxford. Founded in 1823, it is one of Britain's oldest ...
debating society, after 37 years, in protest at its decision to invite Holocaust denier
David Irving
David John Cawdell Irving (born 24 March 1938) is an English author and Holocaust denier who has written on the military and political history of World War II, with a focus on Nazi Germany. His works include ''The Destruction of Dresden'' (19 ...
and
Nick Griffin
Nicholas John Griffin (born 1 March 1959) is a British politician and white supremacist who represented North West England as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2009 to 2014. He served as chairman and then president of the far-righ ...
, the leader of the British National Party, to be speakers at one of its events.
In April 2010, he was asked why he had opposed lowering the age of consent for homosexual relationships, eleven years earlier, in 1999. He stated that this had been because of his belief that the decision to incur any extra risk of contracting HIV should be taken on reaching the current age of majority, namely 18. He added that he had twice voted voluntarily in favour of the Civil Partnership Bill – at Second and Third Readings, on 12 October and 9 November 2004, respectively.
In December 2010, he attacked, and was one of six Conservative MPs who voted against Coalition proposals to increase student tuition fees from a maximum of £3,000 to a maximum of £9,000 per year, on the grounds that this would deter the less well-off from going to university.
In February 2011, he strongly opposed, and was one of three Conservative MPs who voted against, Coalition plans to transfer heritage forests from public ownership to trusts. The plans were later disowned by the Government and abandoned.
In October 2011, he was one of 81 Conservative rebels who voted in favour of a referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union and, in October 2012, he was one of 53 Conservative rebels voting to demand a real-terms cut in the EU budget. Both policies were later adopted by the party leadership.
In July 2012, he was one of 91 Conservatives who successfully blocked Coalition plans to replace the House of Lords with a second chamber of party politicians elected by proportional representation.
In January 2013, with the assistance of MPs from both sides of the nuclear weapons argument, Lewis secured and introduced the first debate in the Commons chamber on Trident since the vote to approve its retention and renewal in March 2007.
From May 2013 onwards, he strongly opposed arming the rebels in the Syrian civil war, arguing that Assad's chemical weapons would pose a deadly threat to the West if they fell into the hands of jihadists fighting on the side of the opposition. On 29 August, the Coalition Government's motion in support of the principle of military intervention was defeated by just 13 votes. Julian Lewis spoke and voted against the Government's motion.
In November 2013, Lewis was one of 16 Eurosceptic Conservative MPs to support an amendment to the European Union (Referendum) Bill, which – if carried – would have required an "in/out" referendum to be held before, rather than after, the scheduled 2015 general election; and in November 2014 he was one of only 28 Eurosceptic Conservative MPs to vote against the UK opting to rejoin the European Arrest Warrant regime.
In November and December 2015, before and during the debate on bombing
ISIL
An Islamic state is a state that has a form of government based on Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a translation of the Arabic term ...
/Daesh in Syria, Lewis challenged David Cameron's claim that there were 70,000 "moderate" Syrian fighters opposing ISIL/Daesh, describing the figure as "magical" and quoting expert commentators' views that the "
Free Syrian Army
The Free Syrian Army (FSA) ( ar, الجيش السوري الحر, al-jaysh as-Sūrī al-ḥur) is a loose faction in the Syrian Civil War founded on 29 July 2011 by officers of the Syrian Armed Forces with the goal of bringing down the governm ...
" contained many Islamists. In the Commons debate on 2 December, Lewis stated that "instead of having dodgy dossiers
s in the 2003 Iraq conflict we now have bogus battalions of moderate fighters". He predicted that "Once Daesh has been driven out, ... an Occupying Power will have to remain in control for many years to come ... and only the Syrian Government Army is likely to provide it. ... Airstrikes alone are a dangerous diversion and distraction. What is needed is a grand military alliance involving not only the West but Russia and, yes, its Syrian Government clients too. ... We need to choose the lesser of two evils and abandon the fiction of a cosy third choice" between "very nasty authoritarians and Islamist totalitarians". After making this widely reported speech, Lewis voted against extending airstrikes against ISIL/Daesh into Syria in the absence of "credible ground forces", and he continued to maintain that, apart from the Kurdish-led forces, in Syria the choice remained "between monsters on the one hand, and maniacs on the other".
In February 2016, at the start of the referendum campaign on British membership of the European Union, Lewis set out his six main reasons for voting to leave, and in the main Commons debate on whether to trigger Article 50, after the Referendum vote to leave, his entire speech consisted of just 17 words: "Thank you, Mr Speaker. In my opinion, the people have decided, and I'm going to vote accordingly".
In January 2017, in a televised Speaker's House lecture, Lewis stated his belief in the unpredictability of future conflicts; the value of nuclear deterrence; and the role of containment in long-term ideological struggles. He called for three per cent of GDP to be spent on Defence, and for a Statute of Limitations to be enacted "covering everything that took place before the Belfast Agreement", in order to protect Service veterans from legal harassment. Lewis also criticised media suggestions that the next NATO Secretary-General should be David Cameron, given his unsatisfactory record of "toppling Arab dictators in places like Libya, increasing military commitments whilst cutting the Armed Forces, predicting a Third World War in consequence of Brexit,
nddangerously delaying the renewal of Trident for the sake of Coalition politics".
In March 2019, Lewis was one of 21 MPs who voted against compulsory sex and relationship education in English schools, arguing that "in some cases, instead of children getting necessary sex education in schools, more parents are going to keep their children out of school" completely.
In January and March 2019, he was one of only 28 Conservative Eurosceptic MPs – the so-called 'Spartans' – to vote against Theresa May's EU Withdrawal Agreement in all three divisions in the House of Commons, because "Brexit should mean Brexit and no deal is better than this bad deal".
Defence Committee Inquiries
Among notable Inquiry reports
produced under the chairmanship of Julian Lewis have been:
''Shifting the Goalposts? Defence Expenditure and the 2% Pledge'', published in April 2016, which concluded that the Government had met the minimum 2% NATO guideline only by counting "several significant items not previously included when calculating defence expenditure", although doing so in accordance with NATO rules. The report set out, in detailed Annexes, the decline in UK expenditure on Defence as a proportion of GDP since the mid-1950s in comparison with that on Welfare, Health and Education. It also led to the subsequent adoption by the Defence Committee of a target of 3% of GDP to be spent on Defence, as in the mid-1990s. In July 2019, the Committee published an ''Update'' to ''Shifting the Goalposts?'', which confirmed that defence expenditure had declined in successive years to 1.9% (2014–15), then 1.8% (2015–16, 2016–17 and 2017–18), when "calculated on a historically consistent basis". Under the more generous NATO rules, the corresponding figures were 2.2% (2014–15), then 2.1% (2015–16, 2016–17 and 2017–18).
''An Acceptable Risk? The Use of Lariam by Military Personnel'', published in May 2016, which led to a significant reduction in the use of the anti-malarial drug mefloquine, and to the enforcement of stringent requirements before its prescription, on account of possible severe side-effects in some cases.
''UK Military Operations in Syria and Iraq'', published in September 2016, which revealed the great disparity between the large number of airstrikes being carried out in Iraq, where the UK was campaigning in support of substantial indigenous government ground forces, and the far lower total undertaken in Syria, where the UK could find only limited ground forces to support.
''Open Source Stupidity – The Threat to the BBC Monitoring Service'', published in December 2016, which strongly criticised the BBC's plan to close the dedicated headquarters of the Monitoring Service at Caversham Park, condemned the UK Government's previous decision to end its ring-fenced grant for the Service which had led to this outcome, and predicted that a state-owned Open Source Information Agency might eventually have to be established.
''Investigations into Fatalities in Northern Ireland involving British Military Personnel'', published in April 2017, which recommended the enactment of a Statute of Limitations coupled with a truth-recovery process as the best way to prevent the legal persecution of UK Service, Police and Security Personnel, decades after the events in question, whilst offering the best prospect of finding out what had actually happened during the Troubles.
''Sunset for the Royal Marines? The Royal Marines and Amphibious Capability'', published in February 2018, which excoriated the heavily trailed suggestion that the amphibious assault ships, HMS ''Albion'' and HMS ''Bulwark'', would be removed from the Fleet 15 years early as part of the National Security Capability Review. The report described the proposal as "a short-sighted, militarily illiterate manoeuvre totally at odds with strategic reality". After wide publicity, the plan was abandoned and the capability was saved.
''Rash or Rational? North Korea and the Threat it Poses'', published in April 2018, which concluded that Kim Jong-un is "ruthless, like other Communist dictators before him, but he is rational" and can be "dissuaded from the use of nuclear weapons by means of a policy of deterrence and containment" though "unlikely to give them up now".
''Lost in Translation? Afghan Interpreters and other Locally Employed Civilians'', published in May 2018, which recommended "a looser and more sympathetic approach" to admitting threatened interpreters to the UK, given that it "is impossible to reconcile the generosity of the Redundancy Scheme with the utter failure of the Intimidation Scheme to relocate even a single LEC to the United Kingdom". Subsequently, some liberalisation of the rules for relocation to the UK was introduced.
''Beyond 2 per cent: A Preliminary Report on the Modernising Defence Programme'', published in June 2018, which backed the removal of Defence from the "fiscally neutral" National Security Capability Review process – with its threats to impose further cuts on the Armed Forces, such as the deletion of the amphibious assault ships. The report recommended a financial settlement "based on a level of Defence expenditure approaching the figure of 3% of GDP", which would demonstrate that the mantra "Defence is the first duty of Government" could finally be believed.
Defence Committee innovations
As well as those carried out by the full Defence Committee under his chairmanship, in 2015 Lewis initiated an arrangement for the Defence Sub-Committee to undertake separate individual inquiries chaired in turn by other members of the Defence Committee. Between 2016 and 2018 the Sub-Committee produced reports on military exercise deaths, the Iraq Historic Allegations Team and Defence in the Arctic.
In February 2018, Julian Lewis and his French counterpart
Jean-Jacques Bridey
Jean-Jacques Bridey (born 7 May 1953) is a French politician representing La République En Marche!, formerly a member of the Socialist Party
Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parti ...
agreed to launch a joint Inquiry by their respective committees into the UK-France future cruise/anti-ship weapon project. It was the first joint Inquiry to be held by a House of Commons Committee and a Committee of a non-UK legislature and reported in December 2018.
Intelligence and Security Committee
On 15 July 2020, Lewis was elected Chair of the
Intelligence and Security Committee
The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC) is a statutory joint committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, appointed to oversee the work of the UK intelligence community.
The committee was established in 1994 by the ...
of Parliament (ISC) with the support of the opposition MPs on the committee. He defeated
Chris Grayling
Christopher Stephen Grayling (born 1 April 1962) is a British Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party politician and author who served as Secretary of State for Transport from 2016 to 2019. He has served as Member of Parliament (United King ...
, who had been the Government's preferred candidate.
Lewis had the Conservative Party whip removed later that day for what a government source described as "working with Labour and other opposition MPs for his own advantage"; but Lewis stated that he had never responded to government whips about how he would vote, because he considered it an "improper request" as the
2013 Justice and Security Act
The Justice and Security Act 2013 (c. 18) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, firstly to provide for oversight of the Security Service (MI5), the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), the Government Communications Headquarters (GCH ...
explicitly removed the Prime Minister's right to choose the committee chair:
"At no earlier stage did I give any undertaking to vote for any particular candidate".
[ Although, the following day, the Leader of the House, ]Jacob Rees-Mogg
Jacob William Rees-Mogg (born 24 May 1969) is a British politician serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for North East Somerset since 2010. Now a backbencher, he served as Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council ...
, said he would not rule out a plot to remove Lewis from the ISC, the government took no further action against him and restored the Conservative Party whip to him unconditionally on 30 December 2020.
Military writings and honorary academic posts
A second edition of his 1988 book ''Changing Direction: British Military Planning for Post-war Strategic Defence, 1942–1947'' was published in 2003 and a university paperback edition in 2008. It was described by Professor Richard Aldrich, in the ''Journal of Cold War Studies'', as "an indispensable guide to some of the most fascinating and secretive aspects of early Cold War history" and "one of the few books to penetrate the wall of secrecy that existed in the 1980s".
His essay on ''Nuclear Disarmament versus Peace in the 21st Century'' won the Trench Gascoigne Prize of the (RUSI) in 2005. Two years later,
Lewis won this prize for a second time, with an essay entitled ''Double-I, Double-N: A Framework for Counter-Insurgency''.
His 10,000-word dissertation on ''The Future of the British Nuclear Deterrent'' was selected for an award and for publication as a Seaford House Paper by the Royal College of Defence Studies
The Royal College of Defence Studies (RCDS) instructs the most promising senior officers of the British Armed Forces, His Majesty's Diplomatic Service and Civil Service in national defence and international security matters at the highest level ...
of which he was a Parliamentary member in 2006.
In February 2009, the ''RUSI Journal'' published ''Soldiers against the Bomb?'' – his essay detailing the principal military and political arguments for retaining the UK nuclear deterrent, in response to a letter in ''The Times'' by three retired Generals.
Also published in 2009, was a commentary by Lewis written as the foreword to a translation and analysis, by US military academic Dr Norman Cigar, of an Al-Qaida terrorist's handbook.
Lewis's own most recent book, published in 2011, is a military biography
A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or ...
''Racing Ace – The Fights and Flights of "Kink" Kinkead DSO DSC* DFC*'', published in 2011, recounting the adventurous life of a pioneering airman whose grave he found in his constituency. In choosing it as a 'Book of the Year 2011' for ''The Sunday Telegraph Magazine'', historian Andrew Roberts described Samuel Kinkead
Samuel Marcus Kinkead DSO, DSC & Bar, DFC & Bar (25 February 1897 – 12 March 1928) was a South African fighter ace with 33 victories during the First World War. He went on to serve in southern Russia and the Middle East postwar.
Early life ...
as "one of the bravest airmen of the 20th century", and ''Racing Ace'' as "exactly what an action biography should be".
Lewis's critique of strategy in Afghanistan ''International Terrorism – The Case for Containment'' was published in the US military journal ''Joint Force Quarterly'' in April 2012. In December that year, the ''RUSI Journal'' published his review article on the ideological fight against Islamist extremism, entitled ''Countering Terrorism is not Enough''.
The dangers of another Middle Eastern military intervention – to help overthrow Assad in Syria – were spelt out by Lewis on the ''ConservativeHome'' website in June 2013.
In May 2014, the ''RUSI Journal'' published ''The Slow Boat to Unilateralism'', an analysis by Lewis of Liberal Democrat policy on the British strategic nuclear deterrent after the completion of the Trident Alternatives Review.
As part of the events marking the centenary of World War I, he delivered a lecture on ''Politics and the First World War'' in May 2015, and in November that year, together with fellow MP Adam Holloway
Adam James Harold Holloway (born 29 July 1965) is a British Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Gravesham since 2005. He served as Lord Commissioner of the Treasury from September to October 2022, and as A ...
, he wrote to all members of the House of Commons welcoming the proposal to bomb ISIL/DAESH – rather than the Syrian Government forces – as a "step in the right direction", but opposing any air campaign in the absence of a realistic strategy on the ground.
During the EU Referendum campaign, in May 2016, ''The Daily Telegraph'' published an 'op-ed' article by Lewis arguing that ''Far from Keeping Britain Safe, the EU is a Threat to Peace'', and in January 2017 he delivered the first in that year's Speaker's Lecture series with a presentation on ''The Future of the Armed Forces''.
In 2010, Lewis was appointed as a Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Defence Studies, Department of War Studies, King's College, London; and, in 2019, he became an Honorary Professor, Strategy and Security Institute, University of Exeter.
See also
* List of parliamentary constituencies in Hampshire
Notes
References
External links
Julian Lewis MP
biography at the site of the Conservative Party
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis, Julian
1951 births
Military personnel from Swansea
Living people
Politicians from Swansea
Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
British Jews
British people of Welsh descent
UK MPs 1997–2001
UK MPs 2001–2005
UK MPs 2005–2010
UK MPs 2010–2015
UK MPs 2015–2017
UK MPs 2017–2019
UK MPs 2019–present
People educated at Dynevor School, Swansea
Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford
Alumni of St Antony's College, Oxford
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Jewish British politicians
Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve personnel
Royal Navy sailors
Politicians affected by a party expulsion process
Royal Naval Reserve personnel
Independent members of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom