May is the PM to take on the Islamist threat
In office the Tory leader has fought terrorists relentlessly, while Corbyn has befriended them
This election is above all a choice about who we can trust to fight for our country and our values against an implacable enemy.
Britain, along with the rest of Western civilisation, faces a uniquely dangerous threat from Islamist extremism. That threat is not just to the security of our citizens, but it is also a direct challenge to our democracy, culture and freedom. Which is why tomorrow’s vote matters so much. We can either have a prime minister determined to defend Britain or a man who has made it his business to defend, befriend and bolster Islamist extremists.
As a Cabinet colleague of Theresa May’s for six years, I saw her resolution in the face of the threat.
Theresa May left the Home Office having considerably improved Britain’s defences. She brought in new legal powers to control the movements of terror suspects and prevent people leaving the country to participate in terrorist activity. She changed human rights laws to make it easier to remove foreign terror suspects. She won international agreements that allow our authorities to share intelligence and data with other countries on a reciprocal basis. And she brought in important new laws to make sure the security and intelligence agencies can acquire the data they need.
She also ensured – even as public spending was being reduced to deal with Labour’s debt crisis – that the budgets for the security and intelligence agencies were not only protected, but increased, and that counter-terrorism policing was also exempt from any spending cuts.
All these achievements have helped to keep Britons safe from terrorism.
Theresa May grasps this essential truth: you cannot tackle the threat without dealing with the force that drives it – the ideology that promotes hatred, intolerance and sectarianism.
One of her first acts in the job was to stop those intent on spreading Islamist ideology from reaching their audience. For years, extremist preachers had been allowed to come to Britain to spread their message. Theresa took a very different line, excluding more hate preachers from Britain than any Home Secretary before her.
She also removed some of the most dangerous foreign hate preachers from Britain. Both Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza were successfully deported despite lengthy legal battles.
On Theresa May’s watch, Prevent – the part of the counter-terrorism strategy designed to turn people away from radicalisation – was reformed so as to include extremist behaviour that has not yet shown signs of becoming violent. Organisations that were unwilling to promote British values not only had their funding stopped, but were not allowed to work with government.
When in 2014 she took on responsibility for tackling wider extremism, Theresa May devised a comprehensive counter-extremism strategy. That strategy set out for the first time a definition of Islamism, and led to the establishment of an Extremism Analysis Unit to help the public sector identify extremist people and organisations with whom they may have previously worked without understanding their danger.
The Conservative Party manifesto promises policies that will continue to get tough with the threat from Islamists. A new Conservative government will lead international efforts to reach agreements on the regulation of cyberspace, to remove the safe space for terror. The security and intelligence agencies and police will be given the powers they need. And, a Commission for Countering Extremism will be established, charged with building capacity in the public sector and wider society to help to identify and take on the extremists.
The alternative does not bear thinking about. Jeremy Corbyn has boasted about opposing every piece of counter-terrorism legislation put forward since he entered Parliament. In Northern Ireland he chose to take the side of the IRA. He calls the Islamist terrorist organisations Hamas and Hezbollah his “friends”. He refuses to support drone strikes against terrorists overseas, and the right of the police to shoot-to-kill rampaging terrorists. In the defining struggle of our times he cannot bring himself to support the actions necessary to safeguard the country he aspires to lead. Every vote cast for Labour is a vote for lowering our guard.