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Sir Julian Murray Lewis (born 26 September 1951) is a British Conservative Party politician serving as the Member of Parliament (MP), representing New Forest East since 1997. Lewis has served as Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) since 2020, succeeding Dominic Grieve. Lewis previously served as Chair of the Defence Select Committee (HCDC), from 2015 to 2017 and from 2017 to 2019, and is the first Parliamentarian to have chaired both the ISC and the HCDC. He actively pursues the retention and renewal of the British strategic nuclear deterrent, the UK Trident programme – 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 Boris Johnson's preferred candidate for the chairmanship of the Intelligence and Security Committee, former Secretary of State for Transport Chris Grayling, on 15 July 2020. The whip was restored on 30 December 2020. A Eurosceptic, Lewis is a supporter of the pro-Brexit groups Leave Means Leave and the European Research Group (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". Early life Born in Swansea, into a Jewish family and son of a tailor and designer, Lewis was educated at Dynevor Grammar School, competing in the school team for Television Top of the Form, broadcast on BBC1 on Thursday 2 June 1966, losing to Fairfield Grammar School, of Bristol, in the semi-finals. The school would also enter the radio competition the following year; to get to the semi-final, his team had beaten Malvern College (girls) on 19 May in the fourth heat. He attended Balliol College, Oxford, receiving a BA, later promoted to MA, in Philosophy and Politics. He studied as a postgraduate at St Antony's College, Oxford, being awarded the DPhil 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, 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, and in order to highlight Militant tendency 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, at HMS President, serving as a Seaman on the Southampton-based Ton-class minesweeper, HMS Glasserton (M1141). Combating CND Lewis was a leading opponent of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and other Left-wing organisations, throughout the 1980s. From 1981 to 1985, he was Research Director and then a Director of the Coalition for Peace through Security, set up to support the replacement of Polaris by Trident and the deployment of NATO cruise missiles at RAF Greenham Common and RAF Molesworth, to counter the Soviet SS-20 missiles. This helped the achievement of President Reagan's 1981 Zero Option proposal in the form of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. 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 – later elected Speaker of the House of Commons – Lewis 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 at Conservative Central Office (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 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 Lewis unsuccessfully contested Swansea West at the 1983 general election. He was elected as the MP for New Forest East in 1997. In this role, he successfully opposed the development of a large container port at Dibden Bay, between Marchwood and Hythe, 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 in 2010, the post which he had shadowed (Minister for the Armed Forces) was allocated to the Liberal Democrat Defence spokesman, Nick Harvey MP. Lewis was appointed as a member of Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee in September 2010. He has also been a vice-chairman of the Conservative Friends of Poland. Lewis has been described by The Daily Telegraph as "one of the most vigorous rightwingers in the Commons" and by The Guardian as the Conservative Party's "front bench terrier". He was one of the Frontbenchers and Backbenchers of the Year chosen by commentators on the ConservativeHome website, in December 2009 and December 2010 respectively. In May 2014, he was one of eight candidates for the chairmanship of the House of Commons Defence Select Committee, coming.... Discover the Julian Lewis popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Julian Lewis books.