Cameron tells MPs Iraq crisis threatens Britain

The Prime Minister said that the militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) threatening the government in Baghdad were also plotting terror attacks on the UK.

Mr Cameron, who is due to chair a meeting of the National Security Council to discuss the crisis in Iraq, said returning militants from the fighting in the Iraq and neighbouring Syria represent a greater threat than those from Afghanistan.

While Britain supported efforts of Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki to tackle extremism, he said that it was essential that the Iraqi government represented the interests of all the people and not just the Shia majority.

“I disagree with those people who think this is nothing to do with us and if they want to have have some sort of extreme Islamist regime in the middle of Iraq, that won’t affect us. It will,” Mr Cameron told MPs at Prime Minister’s questions.

“The people in that regime –as well as trying to take territory – are also planning to attack us here at home in the United Kingdom.

“So the right answer is to be long-term, hard-headed, patient and intelligent with the interventions that we make.

“The most important intervention of all is to make sure that these governments are fully representative of the people who live in their countries, they close down the ungoverned space, and that they remove the support for the extremists.”

Mr Cameron said Britain was increasing the humanitarian aid it was sending to people displaced by the fighting in Iraq from £3m to £5m.

He said it was “vital” that Isis was pushed back by the forces of the Iraqi government.

In the UK, he said, security, intelligence and policing resources were focused on the Middle East region and the dangers of British people travelling there, becoming radicalised and returning home.

“The estimates are now that this is a greater threat to the UK than the return of foreign jihadis or fighters from the Afghanistan or Pakistan region,” he said.

Mr Cameron stressed that British assistance to the rebels in Syria – where Isis is also fighting President Bashar Assad – had been not been sent to Islamists.

He said that other countries in the region, which have been accused of supplying more extremist elements, should do the same.

“Our engagement with the Saudi Arabians, with Qataris, with Emiratis and others is all on the basis that none of us should be supporting those violent terrorists or extremists,” he said.

During questions, a former British Prime Minister who once also urged action in Iraq to prevent attacks on Britain, came under fire from the Commons’ most senior MP. Father of the House Sir Peter Tapsell. He said Tony Blair should be impeached for misleading the Commons over the Iraq war and MPs should use “ancient” powers to haul him back to Parliament.

Sir Peter, one of a handful of Conservative MPs to vote against the Iraq war in 2003, challenged David Cameron to act.

Mr Cameron did not address the impeachment issue but said the Labour Party had delayed the release of papers needed by the Chilcott inquiry into Iraq, so that its findings were still awaited.

Letters: Page 14.