The PM must pledge to wipe out Islamism
It is eight days till the election. Many readers will turn out loyally for Theresa May, but we will not skip to the polling booth in quite the same lambikins spirit we had before the “Dementia Tax” debacle. As one retired chap said to me ruefully at the weekend: “I think they were cynical and thought, ‘Tories haven’t got anyone else to vote for, so we can kick them in the teeth and get away with it.’”
Mrs May is lucky to be up against an opponent you wouldn’t trust to win an egg and spoon race, not even if the egg was Araldited to the spoon and he was the only entrant. The prospect of prime minister Corbyn is so deafeningly awful that most of us would crawl from our deathbed to prevent it. As for Diane Abbott being in charge of the police and Armed Forces… pass the cyanide, Marjorie!
It’s not too late, though, for the PM to address the British people on something we care deeply about, which would attract fervent support from both Left and Right.
Following the heinous bomb attack last week in Manchester, which treated our children as legitimate targets, I suggest that Mrs May makes a speech in which she pledges herself to eradicating radical Islamism from this country, using all means at her disposal. After the Bataclan attacks in Paris in 2015, president François Hollande declared a state of emergency, three days of national mourning and vowed that France “will be merciless against the barbarians”. The order went out to the security services that under no circumstances were French jihadists fighting in Syria to be allowed to return home.
By comparison, the Government’s response to our national tragedy has been feeble; you might almost call it fearful. It almost feels like the correct “public response” was dictated from on high and has been followed, more or less obediently, by the media. While the scenes of public sorrow and solidarity in Manchester have been deeply moving, they in no way reflect the widespread anger and disgust which I’ve encountered over the past nine days.
“I don’t understand why they can’t just put suspected terrorists on a plane,” complained a hygienist at the dentist to two colleagues. One of the women, equally aghast at our apparent impotence in the face of fiends like Salman Abedi, was wearing a headscarf.
See also that eloquent young woman in the Question Time audience in Salford who said that, although she was a proud British Muslim, there was “an elephant in the room” – Saudifunded clerics in her community preaching extremist views. How the panel squirmed with discomfort at this unwelcome truth-telling.
On Twitter, a Bradford policeman attracted a torrent of abuse when he posted a picture of officers kneeling next to an imam in a mosque with the words: “Being visible and offering reassurance is key.” The burden of the response was that the police should be directing their reassurance to women and children at risk of being blown up.
There was further shock and incredulity when intelligence officers said they have identified 23,000 jihadists living in Britain as potential terrorists. About 3,000 are judged to pose an imminent threat and are under investigation or active monitoring in 500 operations. The other 20,000 have cropped up in previous inquiries and are categorised as posing “a residual risk”. Abedi was one such “residual risk” until he took the lives of 22 mums and daughters after an Ariana Grande concert, maiming scores of others.
Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, explained that the decisions to let more than 350 jihadists back into the UK were “intelligence-led” and made “on a case-by-case basis”. Temporary Exclusion Orders, a legal device introduced in 2015, do allow British citizens to be banned from entering Britain if they have gone abroad to join terrorist groups. Hallelujah! Oh, but to date only one has been issued.
Just when you can’t take any more, up pops Nick Clegg to warn that a hardline Brexit would weaken the UK’S ability to tackle terrorism. Sorry, if anyone has weakened our ability to tackle terrorism, it is Clegg and the Liberal Democrats who successfully opposed Control Orders, which restricted a suspected terrorist’s movements, effectively creating “prison without bars”. When Clegg was deputy prime minister in the coalition, Control Orders were replaced by the weaker Tpims. The Lib Dems even secured changes to those, making it harder for the Home Secretary to use them to restrict a suspect’s movements.
And how many of the 3,000 people considered to present an “imminent” terrorist threat are on Tpims? Seven.
It’s not the business of a newspaper columnist to be lost for words, but all of the above has me struggling. Can it be true that there are politicians who think the civil liberties of terrorist suspects are more important than the right of children and their parents not to be massacred? Are our leaders so scared of provoking a backlash in the Muslim community that they avoid taking the tough measures that might protect the whole of society, including decent, upstanding Muslims? Is it right that our security services must fight this menace with their hands tied behind their back?
Where we are, I think, is in a state much like before the EU referendum. A sanctimonious, do-gooding elite imposes what it holds to be virtuous thinking, while millions, who don’t much like seeing eight-year-old girls murdered, are ignored.
Here’s a question for Theresa May. Is she going to allow the jihadists to roam free and laugh at us, or will she heed the parents of 18-year-old Georgina Callander? “Georgina’s life,” a statement said, “was cut short by evil, evil men prepared to ruin lives and destroy families. I wish I could say that Georgina is one of the last to die in this way, but unless our Government opens its eyes we know we are only another in a long line of parents on a list that continues to grow.”
The Callendars cry of anguish demands an answer. What will it be, Prime Minister?