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Two issues will dominate Tory conference: who’ll succeed David Cameron and the

Pawel Swidlicki, an analyst at Open Europe, said the number of undecided lawmakers in the party showed “how important it will be for Cameron to secure a comprehensive and ambitious reform package in order to ensure that the bulk of his party, as well as the wider public, sees any recommendation to remain within the European Union as credible”.

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However, an article in the Spectator, a right-leaning magazine closely aligned with the Conservative Party, said Cameron had chosen an earlier date for his departure. He has made it clear that he wishes to push for Britain to stay in.

Defence and security appear set to be at the heart of the conference agenda as the prime minister hopes to capitalise on divisions within the Labour party over Mr Corbyn’s support for unilateral nuclear disarmament.

Mr Hammond, who was this week in New York for the United Nations general assembly, revealed that Britain’s allies had been “bamboozled” by the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. “But I’ve always said if we don’t get those things that we are asking for I rule nothing out and I am very serious about that”, he added.

In June, London Mayor Boris Johnson, a member of the Prime Minister’s political Cabinet, said it would “probably be safer and more harmonious” for Mr Cameron to allow ministers to campaign on the opposing side.

Mr Cameron said he believe it “may well become possible” to win a Commons vote in favour of extending the RAF’s bombing campaign into Syria by relying on the votes of Labour MPs despite Mr Corbyn’s opposition.

Lawson, the most senior Tory to join the For Britain group, said it needed to get its campaign under way.

Cameron announced last month that a Royal Air Force drone strike killed two British Islamic State jihadists and another militant in the group’s stronghold of Raqa in August.

Mr Cameron also said that if it is proved that Russian Federation is targeting Bashar al-Assad’s opponents in Syria rather than Isil terrorists it would be “completely reprehensible”.

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Special forces troops, including the SAS, will be equipped with new specialist weapons and clothing. Mr Cameron said: “We have at the moment a drone fleet of 10 Reapers and what we are going to be doing is actually replacing that with twice as many with a new updated piece of equipment – called Protector – which will be more than doubling our fleet to keep us safe and to give us the intelligence and information and potentially give us the capacity to hit people who are potentially planning to hit us”. What we try to do is stop people travelling to these regions, confiscate their passports, work with local governments to have them arrested or detained. “I think it may well become possible but you know we will continue doing what we’re doing until it does”. “Because if we try to put to the British people a package which is anything less, we will get a raspberry from them”.

Graham Brady'MPs and ministers should be just as free to campaign as conscience dictates