News from the New Party

David Cameron: a blight on British politics

First, a concerted attack on racism and soft bigotry. You can't even start to talk about a truly integrated society while people are suffering racist insults and abuse, as many still are in our country on a daily basis. We must also be careful about the language we use. No Muslim I've ever met is offended by Christmas, or supports its replacement with 'Winterval'. But many Muslims I've talked to about these issues are deeply offended by the use of the word 'Islamic' or 'Islamist' to describe the terrorist threat we face today.

We do need greater understanding of the true nature of the terrorist threat. There's too much complacency about it among non-Muslims, and too much denial of it in the Muslim community. But our efforts are not helped by lazy use of language.

The final change needed is a much more rigorous approach to combating Islamic fundamentalism. The government seems confused as to what fundamentalism actually is. On the one hand ministers — perfectly reasonably — express concern about women who wear the veil while teaching. On the other hand they pay for extremist preachers of hate such as Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who supports suicide bombings, to attend conferences.

On Planet Cameron, the phrases ‘Islamic’ or ‘Islamist’ terrorism are to be expunged from the lexicon. I wonder therefore whether Cameron would denounce the British Muslim Ed Husain for ‘soft bigotry’ over his book ‘The Islamist’?

...Husain shows that Islam and Islamism are two different things: that it is perfectly possible to be a Muslim who derives spiritual solace from the faith in a way that threatens no-one — and that it is essential to distinguish such Muslims from Islamists and protect the former, along with all of us, from the latter. Muslims like Husain need our support, encouragement and protection. David Cameron’s words instead take the ground from under his feet.

But I believe that in the last five years we have suffered from the absence of two crucial qualities which should always condition foreign policy-making. Humility, and patience. These are not warlike words. They are not so glamorous and exciting as the easy sound-bites we have grown used to in recent years. But these sound-bites had the failing of all foreign policy designed to fit into a headline.