Get tougher on extremists, PM told as her anti-terror measures are criticised

Sources say Prime Minister could reintroduce control orders she scrapped under Lib Dem pressure

THERESA MAY was yesterday urged to reintroduce control orders for terrorism suspects as she was accused of blocking measures while home secretary that could have helped thwart extremism.

Mrs May scrapped control orders while she was at the Home Office, partly as a concession to demands from Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister, as part of the Coalition deal.

They were replaced with Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures (Tpims) in 2011, which are seen as less effective and are rarely used. Only seven people were subject to Tpims when the most recent figures were released.

Sources close to the Prime Minister said yesterday that she could consider re-introducing control orders, perhaps under a new name, after she promised to give the police and security services “all the powers they need” to tackle a “more complex, more fragmented and more hidden” terrorist threat.

The former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Lord Carlile of Berriew, suggested the reintroduction of control orders would be top of her list in any review. The orders allowed suspects to be relocated away from their home communities, subjected to 16-hour home-arrest curfews and barred from using mobile phones or the internet.

They were used more widely than the time-limited Tpims, which exclude suspects from going to specific places and require them to wear electronic tags and report regularly to the police.

However, one government source said Tpims had been “beefed up” over the years to the extent that they included all the powers of a control order and only differed in being time-limited to two years, rather than being openended. The source said: “It’s more likely that you will see an increase in the number of Tpims being issued because we know that when Isil are under pressure in theatre, and when jihadis can’t get to Syria to fight, they are more likely to carry out attacks at home.”

Lord Carlile called for the budget for the Government’ s Prevent counter radical is at ion programme to be“at least doubled”, arguing that its benefits have been shown to outweigh concerns from some community leaders that it has alienated British Muslims.

Writing in today’s Daily Telegraph, Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle, points out that in 2014 Mrs May blocked proposals by Michael Gove to widen the definition of extremism to take in all forms of Islamism, not just violence. Mrs May argued against it, and a far narrower definition was adopted. She said at the time that Mr Gove was wrong to claim that Islamism was being tolerated within Whitehall – where he had said departments refused to take action against extremism in schools and other bodies. Yesterday, however, Mrs May said it was vital for the “public sector” to clamp down on extremism in all its forms.

Ihave created a new folder on my computer in which to save columns. It is called “terrorism”. In the aftermath of these attacks, most people seem to choose one of two camps: the “love will prevail” pep-talkers and the “wake up!” warriors. Am I alone in finding that neither resonates?

I can no more fill my heart with love and talk about our unity than

I can furiously denounce others for their lack of rage, declare the West’s impending doom or demand the election be postponed.

Denial or hysteria cannot be the only options. There is something in between. Of course daily life does not sail on unchanged when it’s punctuated by terrorist attacks. It carries on, but with a little more wariness and fear. And yet, nor am I convinced that Islamist terrorism, despite its horrors, poses an existential threat to our civilisation. I believe that Britain and its values are resilient and deeply rooted. I believe this not because of “love”, but because it is one of the lessons of our history.

We have certainly faced greater perils. At various points, would-be invaders or empire-building tyrants on the continent have threatened Britain’s security. We’ve had tyrants of our own, civil war and bloody religious strife. We’ve had periods of greater vigilance, such as during the threat of IRA bombs. We’ve lived with official advice, such as “how to survive an air raid”, as terrifying as the police’s latest mantra that the public ought to “run, hide, tell” during a terrorist attack.

This danger, they say, is different. Britain is facing something it hasn’t seen before: a threat from within. We are destroying ourselves by mass immigration, argue the pessimists, led most eloquently by Douglas Murray in his recent book The Strange Death of Europe. European civilisation, he argues, is dying mainly because countries like Britain are now home to large Muslim populations, some of whom wish Europe harm, do not share its values or have descendants susceptible to radicalisation.

Given that sporadic Islamist terrorism and attempted attacks now seem to be part of normal life in Europe, it is time to engage seriously with this argument, rather than simply shouting it down as racist.

Immigration has changed Western Europe. It has enriched us, yes, both materially and culturally. But it has also brought new problems.

Take, for example, Britain’s thousands of new connections to people and politics abroad. Relationships between immigrants and their homelands bring valuable trade links and cultural exchange. They bring unwanted connections, too, like Manchester’s links with the anti-gaddafi Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, whose members include the father of the Manchester bomber, or the several hundred British

Isil fighters who have reportedly returned to these shores. Our current approach to these problems – relying on resource-intensive surveillance – does not seem like a good one.

Other problems are less distinct. Segregation can happen over time and often goes unnoticed – many people choose to live harmlessly among others like themselves. But sometimes, it allows toxic ideologies to spread and, in some Muslim circles, anti-british narratives have a powerful hold. These present Muslims as the eternal victim of Western aggression and perpetuate conspiracy theories about British collaboration with evil-doers.

Britain isn’t perfect, of course, and many Muslims have no doubt come across discrimination or ignorance. But this is by and large a tolerant country, and surveys of Muslims suggest that the vast majority feel they benefit from its freedoms. Britain is not very good at explaining that these freedoms come as a package, along with tolerance, democracy and some degree of liberalism.

There is no straightforward solution here. Ramping up anti-muslim rhetoric, banning burkas and forcing immigrants to choose between nation and religion – the French approach – does not seem to work.

What does work? Well, as Murray argues, in order to spread our values, we need to remember how we developed them. Democratic civil society and tolerance did not just descend from heaven. They emerged from a long history. Scholarship and the economy played their part, bringing urbanisation, independence, new technology and the scientific method. Strife and war played their part, too: Anglicanism emerged only after years of religious fanaticism and conflict; constitutional monarchy only after civil war; universal male suffrage only after the horror of the First World War. And dogged campaigning played

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its part, giving us child labour laws, the abolitionist movement and female suffrage.

These are the things that made democracy. It did not spring unbidden from its obvious righteousness, but from a long history of trial and error.

The pessimists tend to argue that this means we are locked in a terrible clash of civilisations within our own country. They demand an end to “platitudes” and issue dire warnings about the disaster to come.

The Government should concede this point: our future immigration policy should take into account not just our economic needs, but also social cohesion. It is irresponsible to continue as normal when our own leaders admit that we have not worked out how to foster better integration.

But what would the angry pessimists have us do about the current situation? Should we filter people based on their religion or skin colour? Should we exile British citizens who have done nothing wrong? What is to be gained by arguing for the intractable incompatibility of Islam and democracy? Muslims are part of Britain; thousands participate in our democracy, from Sadiq Khan, London’s Mayor, to any Muslim who reads the papers or casts a vote.

If, instead, we look to our history, Britain will find it rich with examples of fanaticism succumbing to moderation, rational debate winning arguments and peril giving way, in turn, to peace. Progress isn’t easy or automatic and it doesn’t come from denying the existence of a problem. But it’s too soon for defeatism.

After a year of writing columns, I have just created my “terrorism” folder, but I believe there will come a time when I consign it to a folder labelled “archive”.