It’s the Left’s fault we can’t try Begum here

Campaigns against tougher terror laws have made it too dangerous to bring the jihadi bride back to Britain

Shamima Begum is an unlikely poster girl for the Left. The selfdescribed “housewife” subscribes to a deeply regressive and dangerous Islamist ideology, which treats women with contempt and violence. Yet the Home Secretary Sajid Javid’s decision to strip her of her British citizenship has unleashed a chorus of condemnation from almost every progressive commentator in the land.

Mr Javid’s decision makes many – including me – uncomfortable. To all intents and purposes, Shamima Begum is British – Bethnal Green was the only home that she had known – and we must be cautious about playing fast and loose with laws on citizenship-stripping.

As British Jews qualify for citizenship of Israel by birthright, a future anti-semitic government could well make arbitrary use of such a mechanism. Indeed, Labour’s John Mcdonnell has in the past suggested stripping citizenship from British Jews who join the Israel Defence Forces. Moreover, preventing Begum’s entry to the UK (even if it is legally possible) is unlikely to solve the problem of what to do with her. Bangladesh, the proposed alternative, is disowning her.

It is quite possible that, by virtue of the Home Secretary’s decision, she will continue to reside in a refugee camp, where she can give unfiltered media interviews that promote her distorted views.

But the most worrying scenario is that if, as her family hopes, she does manage to come here, the UK’S hodgepodge of terror laws could well see her serve either a nominal prison sentence, or evade justice altogether.

Some of the most relevant crimes only came into law last week – slamming the stable door four years after the horse bolted.

There ought to have been options – good ones – to manage Begum here in Britain, and yet every serious effort to build counter-terrorist laws fit to deal with the challenges of returning Isil members has been thwarted by the very people now outraged that the UK is not taking more responsibility.

Labour is playing games on this issue. Diane Abbott has likened Shamima Begum to a “grooming victim”. Jeremy Corbyn has also said she must be allowed to return and that she may need “support”.

Such figures slam the Government for refusing to let Begum return, and yet this sort of soft approach to terrorists is one of the reasons why it would be so dangerous to let her come here. Our treason laws provide a case in point. It is hard to think of something more definable as treason than joining a terrorist organisation that swore to destroy the UK. However, the remit set out in the 700-year-old Act that defines treason fails to cover Isil.

There have been a series of efforts to change this. A 2008 Law Commission report, a 2014 Henry Jackson Society report, and a 2018 Policy Exchange report all called for changes to modernise its scope. Each attempt was received with echoes of condemnation from critics who called such proposals callous.

Last year, Kenan Malik, the author and Observer columnist, said that “the concept of treason runs contrary to the kinds of social obligations necessary to make a free, democratic society work”.

This week he argued that refusing Begum entry was “ethically grotesque”. But if we are to allow her entry, we must ensure that she – and others – are met with punishment proportionate to the scale of the crimes committed.

Given that the justice system is not set up to deal properly with somebody like Begum, if she were to return to British soil the Home Secretary would have to look at the long-term options for keeping tabs on her.

Here the prognosis is equally bleak. The “control orders” of yesteryear, which placed tough restrictions on the activities of suspected terrorists, are no more, having succumbed to a campaign mounted against them.

In their place are the comparatively toothless Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures, or TPIMS, which are rarely used and extremely expensive.

These legal mechanisms have faced a relentless onslaught of opposition from many in Britain. Even now, Liberty, the group once led by Shami Chakrabarti, campaigns for the abolition of these stripped-down community measures.

The Home Secretary has been faced with an impossible choice: keep Shamima Begum out or risk her walking the streets of Britain.

The dilemma should never have been this stark. It ought to have been possible to punish Begum in accordance with her crimes, or at the very least to subject her to the conditions necessary to secure the public’s safety. Yet these measures – and more – have been obstructed, opposed, or obviated by a coordinated Left-wing campaign against them.

The best response to crime is a punishment proportionate to the offence. Hopefully, this experience will pave the way to a stronger toolkit of legal mechanisms in future.