This week a white racist from the small Yorkshire town of Goole was convicted of plotting terrorist attacks aimed almost certainly at what are being euphemistically referred to as 'minority communities'. Also this week a white racist party came within 78 votes of securing 3rd place in the Henley by election, beating Labour by 177 votes. Given that neither Henley nor Goole are exactly multi-ethnic, the common factor is almost certainly a fear of radical Islam perversely twisted by white racist parties who want us all to believe that all Muslims are potential terrorists, a claim that is as untrue as it is dangerous.
However, both the conviction of a white supremacist of terrorist offences and the 3.5% vote gained by a racist party in the Henley by election, are at least in some measure a tragic legacy of the repeated public claims by both Labour and Lib-Dem politicians that violence is a 'perversion' of Islam.
I have no doubt that such repeated comments by senior government ministers, including Jacqui Smith the Home Secretary and Hazel Blears the Communities Secretary are well intentioned. They doubtless see themselves as acting responsibly, aiming to avoid vigilante attacks on Muslims. But genuine responsibility needs to go hand in hand with truth.
During the recent election for London mayor I observed that the denials of any link between Islam and violence by both leading Labour politicians and ex Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick, then the Lib-Dem candidate for London mayor, ultimately provided fertile ground for racist parties to whip up hatred of ordinary Muslims. Put simply, it only takes a certain number of Islamic extremists to be convicted of planning terrorist acts before the ordinary man and woman in the street stops believing what public figures like Home Secretary Jacqui Smith say - and instead start to believe the perverted claims about ALL Muslims that are made by racist parties.
That is almost certainly the explanation for this week's events. In the light of these, including a planned terrorist outrage aimed at 'minorities', it gives me no pleasure whatsoever, only sadness to have to say 'I warned you' to Liberal-Left politicians like the Lib Dems Brian Paddick, who in direct response to my article on Centre-Right repeated his claim that 'Islamic terrorism is a contradiction in terms'
The only safe course for the government is to speak with both truth AND responsibility. That means privately challenging Islamic groups to deal with the theology of violence in classical Islam (a subject most ordinary British Muslims thankfully know almost nothing about). While in public, the government must quite truthfully stress that the majority of ordinary Muslims totally reject violence - rather than making mistaken claims about what Islam is or isn't, as the present government continues to do.
If the present government continue to fail to do this, then as this week's events have shown, there is a real possibility that the UK will see rising levels of fear and hatred of ordinary Muslims, most of whom totally reject violence and just want to get on with their family lives. Ironically, such attacks on ordinary Muslims are themselves likely to broaden the appeal of radical Islam among British Muslims.
