Tory leader David Cameron has promised to seriously consider proposals to establish a new UK National Security Council.
He was commenting after the Conservative Party’s National and International Security Policy Group published an interim report calling for a new approach to terrorism and extremism.
In its report, the security policy group said: "We need to recognise that a central element of foreign policy – the intervention in Iraq – has failed in its objectives so badly that the threat to this country is actually greater than it was before it began."
Stressing that it is no longer possible to look at domestic security policy and foreign policy separately from each other, the report called for a balanced approach to Britain’s closest international relationships, a recognition of the seriousness of the threat to our security and the need for a new approach to meet it, a Partnership for Open Societies in the Middle East, the establishment of a UK National Security Council, and the appointment of a Cabinet-level Security Minister dedicated to protecting Britain from terrorism. The report said another step for repairing foreign policy should be to recognise, at the heart of the Government, the fundamental connections between events at home and abroad so that foreign policy, defence policy and security policy are formulated together rather than apart.
"What is needed is a mechanism within which those responsible for action across Government – the Foreign and Home Offices, DfID, the Ministry of Defence, the Intelligence Agencies and the Cabinet Office – supported by a dedicated cross-departmental staff – can ensure that, from the start, policy adopted in any of these areas is coherent in the sense that it takes fully into account the likely consequences at home and abroad."
