font-size: 11pt”>Islamist extremism has not vanished from Britain – it has mutated, spread online and adapted to new conditions. Since 2005, the UK has endured further attacks: in Manchester, Westminster, London Bridge, Streatham and beyond. The vast majority were also driven by Salafi-jihadist ideology, often linked to ISIS or al-Qaeda. According to MI5, around 80 per cent of current counter-terror investigations still focus on Islamist threats. The threat level remains ‘substantial’.
Yet instead of reckoning with the ideological roots of this violence, we revert to euphemism. We speak of ‘senseless’ evil and ‘hate’, but never of jihad or violent Islamism. We speak of ‘division’, but never of a desire for ‘martyrdom’. This rhetorical airbrushing serves political ends. It’s an attempt to sidestep painful debates about extremism and integration. But it also evades truth.
The pattern has only deepened since 7 October 2023, when Hamas launched the bloodiest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. In the weeks that followed, there were open displays of support for jihadist groups on Britain’s streets, with Islamist contingents marching beneath banners that glorified terror and demonised Israel. Some gathered in London literally calling for jihad.
The police, memorably, decided that jihad in this context referred to a spiritual struggle, and was therefore unproblematic.
Yet, as Monday’s anniversary statements show, our elites continue to evade the Islamist threat. Starmer praised the courage of Londoners and declared that ‘those who tried to divide us failed’. The king spoke of building a society of mutual respect and condemned the attacks as ‘senseless acts of evil’. But evil does not lose its sense when it has a clear aim. The bombers succeeded in their immediate objective: they murdered 52 people. And they did so with the intention, conviction and clarity of purpose of those who believe they are engaged in a holy war against the West. To claim otherwise is not only false, it is also a disservice to the dead.
It is easy to see why this trend has arisen. Former counter-terrorism chief Neil Basu, for example, used an interview in the Guardian marking the 20th anniversary of 7/7 to argue that UK foreign policy, including support for Israel, has contributed to radicalisation and made extremists of people who might otherwise not have been. He called this ‘soul destroying’, and seemed to suggest that we should rethink our global stance – not because it is wrong, but because it might provoke attacks.
This was of course the standard line at the time on the left: 7/7 was a response – understandable but perhaps a little de trop – to UK foreign policy, from overthrowing Saddam Hussein to support for Israel. With someone of Basu's views in charge, no wonder our counter-terrorism strategy hasn't been quite the rip-roaring success we'd been hoping for.
This is a dangerous argument. The proper response to terrorism is to stand strong, not to shy away from standing with democratic allies like Israel which are fighting jihadism themselves. It is to face down the extremists, at home and abroad, with clarity, courage and resolve. Terrorism isn’t caused by our values or our alliances. It’s caused by the people who choose to murder in the name of jihad.