There’s no coming back from pure evil
We all know teenagers can be tricky. They’re drawn to the dark and the dangerous like moths to a flame, and think every word their parents say is rubbish.
But chucking away a comfortable home and good education to join an army of terrorists who murder innocents, use children as sex slaves and hack off aid workers’ heads?
What sort of a twisted fanatic would you be to sign up for that?
The only possible answer is a twisted fanatic who actually agrees with what they stand for – and wants to help spread their sick ideology. A twisted fanatic like Shamima Begum.
The Bethnal Green schoolgirl ran away to join the jihad in 2015, aged 15, and was quickly married to an ISIS fighter. Now 19 and pregnant with her third child, she has turned up feeling sorry for herself in a Syrian refugee camp.
She wants to return to the UK and says: “I’ll do anything required just to be able to come home and live quietly with my child.”
As a mother, as a woman and as a human, my heart breaks for that poor innocent baby, being born into this almighty mess.
Yes, we should try to help that baby, along with the hundreds of other babies in that refugee camp.
But would I let Shamima back into the UK to pick up the life of safety and opportunity that she so carelessly threw away? No. Never. Her brother argues she was young, adding: “I don’t think she had the life experience to make those decisions.
“The hope would be that she would be allowed to return home, as long as the Government is satisfied she has turned her back on their ideology.”
I’m sorry, but I don’t buy that. She may have been 15, but she threw in her lot with rapists and murderers of her own free will – rejecting her family and her country, one that had given her free schooling and healthcare.
The saying goes, if you make your bed, you have to lie in it. And this applies to Shamima.
Why, as British taxpayers, should our money be spent bringing her back and giving her NHS care? Not to mention all the tens of thousands to try to work out if she posed a threat.
We must make an example of her. Send a clear message – if you leave this country to fight against it, don’t expect a free pass home.
And she does not make a compelling case, saying: “I don’t regret coming here. I’m not the same silly little 15- year- old schoolgirl who ran away from Bethnal Green four years ago.”
No you’re not a silly little schoolgirl, Shamima. You have spent four years living among terrorists, and happily admit you were “not fazed” by the sight of severed heads.
The public mood is not pretty. Home Secretary Sajid Javid is digging his heels in, saying he is prepared to block her return and that she would face a criminal investigation if she did manage to flee Syria.
This woman picked her side years ago. So I find this change of heart rather suspicious. And as cold as it sounds, we should turn our back on her.
If her family are so concerned they should try to find Shamima and her child a new home in an Islamic country more aligned with the views that put her on this sorry journey in the first place.