Cameron needs to get a grip of Islamist extremism in Britain



Jihadist propaganda and the vilest slurs against our armed forces have gone unchallenged for too long

COLUMN LAST UPDATED AT 11:37 ON THU 23 MAY 2013
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THE DREADFUL killing of a British soldier by Islamists hasn't come from nowhere. Agitation against our armed forces by Islamist extremists has a long history in this country – and for as long as we have had it the authorities have been reluctant to do anything about it.

The most celebrated incident took place in Luton as far back as 2009 when the 2nd Battalion The Royal Anglians (unhindered recruiters in Bedfordshire since 1688) were met by a screaming Islamist mob as the troops marched through the town on return from a tour in Afghanistan.  
Some of the locals took exception to this discourteous behaviour and fisticuffs ensued. The local police intervened and arrests were made but not a single Islamist was detained.

Politicians, huge chunks of the media and the courts enforce a hair-trigger sensitivity over the use of language in some contexts – even mild, traditional abuse of the Welsh will attract the interest of the police.  But jihadist propaganda and the vilest slurs against our armed forces go unchallenged.

There may be another factor at work. Given where this attack took place, south London, and that the alleged perpetrators were young British black men, I wonder if we are not seeing just another symptom of a loss of control by the authorities in parts of our large cities - ill-educated, rootless, testosterone and drug-fuelled young men turning to violence – but on this occasion with a religious rather than gang-related motive. Op Trident meets al-Qaida.

In some ways this kind of terrorist attack is more shocking than a bombing, and is meant to be. For the past year the online al-Qaeda magazine Inspire has been encouraging this low-level style of attack. They think it's a cheap, clever option to frighten us.

But there is a positive aspect to the public reaction so far. Terrorism by definition is meant to produce fear in the population – in essence it's a violent hybrid of intimidation and blackmail in a political cause. Most of us felt fear after 7-7, say.  I certainly did – not helped by the fact that my office then was in Russell Square.  
But yesterday's brutal and barbaric decapitation of a serving, off-duty British soldier wearing of all things the T-shirt of that gentlest charity – Help for Heroes – in broad daylight, on a suburban London street, seems to have engendered intense outrage and disgust. There is no fear in the mix.

This is set against a changing national mood – partly the result of our economic woes, partly the result of some very unpleasant multicultural chickens coming home to roost. Most people are fed up to the back teeth of both violent crime and Islamist extremism. Very fed up.

Cobra is apparently in session under the chairmanship of the prime minister himself. If he has got the balls to get a grip of Islamist extremism rather than mouthing the usual political platitudes he could use his authority to send an uncompromising signal – zero tolerance of Islamist propaganda and incitement wherever and in whatever form within the borders of this country. Today, of all days, would be a good day to deport Abu Qatada. ·