John Denham seems to have announced a major shift in Labour’s policy towards violent extremism and extremism. It shouldn’t pass unnoticed.
I’ve just finished reading a Quilliam Foundation summary of his remarks at a Labour Conference fringe meeting titled: “How should the Left engage with British Muslims?"
According to the summary, Denham said that “we have critical-, non- and naïve-engagement.
Non-engagement means not agreeing with an organisation’s views, and therefore refusing engagement with them. But if you don’t create space for critical engagement, you end up talking to those that you agree with. There must be limits with those who do break the law, but otherwise we have to recognise that most situations are resolved through engagement with those with whom you don’t necessarily agree.”
I assume that “naïve engagement” is either a reporting error or a Freudian slip. So let’s put this phrase aside, and ask what the rest of Denham’s words add up to. It’s reasonable to read them as saying: “This Labour Government will engage with anyone who doesn’t break the law”.
If so, this is a major departure from the Government’s previous position. As Conservative Home readers know, I wasn’t always an enthusiast for Labour’s last Communities Secretary, Hazel Blears – as previous pieces on this site demonstrate.
But even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Earlier this year, she severed relations with the Muslim Council of Britain after Daud Abdullah, its Deputy Secretary-General, signed a declaration in Istanbul effectively supporting attacks on our armed forces.
Ministers’ position was that they wouldn’t sit down with people who support such attacks, or the targeting of civilians, or the incitement of violence and hatred – a view mirroring our own established one (and which Chris Grayling reinforced recently, as this site reported yesterday).
People who support attacks on our troops or on civilians aren’t always in breach of the law. Questions therefore arise. Will Ministers now sit down with the Luton extremists who brandished banners describing our troops as “murderers”, “terrorists” and “butchers of Basra?” Or with the Muslim Brotherhood? Or - if not breaking the law is the measure - with the BNP? I ask because this is the logic of Denham’s own words.
Watch this space when Parliament returns in October.
