Don't sanitise deadly virus of Islamism, warns Javid
Woke activists who cry "islamophobia" at all attempts to tackle extremism are threatening Britain’s efforts to root out and protect the public from Islamist terrorism, Sajid Javid says today.
Writing exclusively for The Telegraph, the former Home Secretary - who is himself a Muslim - warned against efforts to “sanitise” the deadly “ideological virus” of Islamism by rebranding it as “faith-based violence” or irhabi - the Arabic word for terrorist.
He said this shift in terminology was not just being backed by Islamist groups but also being discussed by senior policy officials including counter-terrorism police chiefs.
Launching a Policy Exchange initiative to track the spread of Islamism in the UK, Mr Javid said: “Among them are unsurprisingly, Islamist groups themselves who seek to distract us from the practice of what they preach.
“There are well-meaning officials who worry that Islamism, a term with credible and established meaning, could be seen as implicating the entire religion of Islam and all its diverse and peaceful adherents.
“And there are woke activists who are quick to victim-blame the West and cry Islamophobia at all attempts to deal with the issue.”
But Mr Javid added: “I believe it is critical that we confront this ideology head on and call it for what it is. President Macron is right to recognise this intellectual battle, and to characterise Islamism as a form of separatism.”
The former Chancellor, who some have tipped as a future Foreign Secretary, said Islamism was an ideological virus “antithetical” to liberal democracy and responsible for inspiring countless deadly attacks against innocent people including the London Bridge killings almost exactly a year ago.
“It claims to speak for the Muslim community yet is a twisted version of the great religion of Islam that billions follow around the world,” said Mr Javid.
Citing terror attacks in recent months in Paris, Nice and Vienna and the current 800 “live” terror investigations in the UK, he warned extremism of “various hues” had “flourished during lockdown, with people spending much more time online being bombarded by conspiracy theories”.
He said the “short, pitiful” life of the London Bridge terrorist Usman Khan showed how deeply embedded the Islamist “virus” could become given the extensive efforts to deradicalise and rehabilitate him failed to stop him turning to violence again.
Mr Javid called for a “national conversation” on ways to combat this “virus” and welcomed the Policy Exchange initiative as a “helpful step in that direction”.
It is being led by Sir John Jenkins, former British ambassador to Saudi Arabia and co-author of the Government’s 2015 review on the Muslim Brotherhood, and Dr Martyn Frampton.
In a joint paper to be published on Sunday, they urged all government and law enforcement officials to continue to use Islamism as “appropriate” and “absolutely necessary.”
“The British Government must not cede ground to Islamists, who for decades have misleadingly claimed to be the representatives of true Islam, by failing to understand their motives, the roots of their ideology and the consequences of the social and political gains they seek to make,” they wrote.
