LAST week, all five Teesside MPs voted in favour of the UK joining in air strikes on Iraq. As our previous interventions in Iraq and Libya have shown us, wars cannot be won by just dropping bombs, an action which also risks many civilian casualties. Yet again we are following the Americans into a war without thinking through the consequences.

This exposes the foreign policy of both the coalition and the Labour Party as shambolic and ill thought out.

Ukip believes a better strategy would have been to use our expertise and strategical help to form a coalition of ground forces of Arab and African countries with the aim of containing and ultimately eliminating the threat of IS.

Mandy Boylett, Prospective Ukip Parliamentary Candidate for Stockton North