Stephen Pollard

people on our streets and at a political class that goes through the motions of prevention but is content to let jihadis walk those same streets.

Anger at Muslim leaders who refuse to take responsibility for dealing with the poison in their communities. And anger at the Whitehall officials who think the way to deal with Islamists is to embrace them rather than shun them.

There are those for whom we should have only thanks and praise: the police and security services who try their best to keep us safe against this background.

More often than not we are dependent on the law enforcement and security services for a reality check.

This week we got just that from Neil Basu, the Metropolitan Police’s counter-terrorism chief.

It sometimes takes the hard facts dealt with by the police to cut to the chase.

According to Mr Basu, “unregulated” education and home schooling has become a breeding ground for “homegrown jihadis” and extremists “in our midst”.

And as if that threat is not bad enough, weaknesses on our borders are compounding the problem.

The security services are now investigating 600 terror plots,

BUT this is a choice that we make. Our borders and ports are porous because we choose to let them be. We choose not to screen who enters our country. We choose to let jihadis return. This is not inevitable, it is our choice.

Not that we are alone in this. Last week the EU’s counterterrorism co-ordinator Gilles de Kerchove said that the UK has around 35,000 fanatical Islamists, of whom 3,000 are regarded as serious terrorists with 500 under surveillance.

But he also said that France has 17,000 and Spain more than 5,000 of them. Across the EU as a whole he estimated that there are more than 50,000 would-be jihadis.

Some of these are homegrown but many others are not: they are terrorists whom we have invited into our countries.

The Helsinki attack I mentioned is typical.

The man identified as responsible, Abderrahman Mechkah, is an 18-year-old Moroccan who had been denied asylum and had been tipped off to the Finnish security services for his extremist views. He had travelled through Germany in 2016 on his way to Finland.

We might as well have issued him with a printed invitation to come to murder in Europe.

With every passing day this is getting worse. As Mr Basu revealed: “Every week we open more than we close,” with a total of more than 600 investigations now ongoing.

What will it take before we choose to act seriously?

‘Europe is succumbing to more jihadis’