Pauline Neville-Jones, the new Security Minister, gave her first interview recently - to the Islam Channel, described by Quilliam as repeatedly promoting "problematic, Wahabi-influenced views on the role of Muslim women, on more mainstream religious traditions, on integration into British society and even promoted the works of extremist preachers or groups - while often sidelining or excluding more moderate voices".
Bearing this in mind, and with Ministers in place, and the Coalition Government now up and more or less running, now is a timely moment to probe its likely stance on cohesion, integration - and relations with Islam.
As some readers know, I've a special interest in these matters - particularly in the Prevent strand of Contest, the Government's counter-terrorism strategy. For nine years or so, I represented more Muslim constituents than any other Conservative MP. In 2006, five of my constituents were arrested in relation to the airplane liquid explosives plot. Two of them were released without charge, and three put on trial - and eventually convicted.
In the plot's aftermath, I badgered David Cameron with my views about how to fight extremism and build moderation. I'm doubly grateful to him firstly for sending me to his DCLG team, which was shadowing a key Government department, and secondly for not firing me when I announced last year that I was standing down from Westminster. I finally left the front bench of my own volition at the start of this year. I've written about these matters for Conservative Home often, for example here, here, and here.
For two and a half years, then, I worked with an often changing front bench cast: three Shadow Home Secretaries - David Davis, Dominic Grieve and Chris Grayling; two Shadow DCLG Secretaries - Eric Pickles and Caroline Spelman; and two recent Shadow Cabinet arrivals - Sayeeda Warsi and Pauline Neville Jones herself. David Cameron also took a close and useful interest in events.
The tale of those years is too long to tell now - and beside my main point, which is to look to the future. But I'd sum it up briefly by saying that by the time of the election we'd agreed a clear idea of what we wanted to do in Government. It was necessarily more comprehensive than the Conservative manifesto, which pledged to ban Hizb-ut-Tahrir, had space to describe.
The manifesto said that a Conservative Government "will ban any organisations which advocate hate or the violent overthrow of our society, such as Hizb-ut-Tahrir, and close down organisations which attempt to fund terrorism from the UK". The Coalition Agreement seems to go less far than this promise in one way, but further than it in others.
It pledges to "deny public funds to any group that has recently espoused or incited violence or hatred. We will proscribe such organisations, subject to the advice of the police and security and intelligence agencies". This can be read as, on the one hand, offering a means of dropping the Hizb-ut-Tahrir ban - if state agencies advise against it - while, on the other, rigorously scrutinising the use of taxpayers' money.
However, the words of the Coalition document will be less important than the deeds of Ministers. The key ones will be Theresa May and Pauline Neville-Jones at the Home Office; William Hague and Alistair Burt at the Foreign Office (Alistair's responsibilities will include counter-terrorism and South Asia), and Eric Pickles and Andrew Stunnell (whose brief will take in Community Cohesion) at the DCLG.
I suspect that Pauline's use of the Islam Channel was part of a charm offensive - aimed at reminding Muslim voters in particular that major elements of the new Government's programme will be welcome to them (though it shouldn't of course be aimed at any group in particular). In the interview, she stressed, rightly, that the Coalition will review stop and search, pre-charge detention, and control orders.
She also said that many British Muslims have "anxieties" about Prevent, believing it to be "stigmatising" and "directed at them", adding that "it isn't necessarily achieving its objectives". She also stressed that the new Government will have a proper integration strategy.
My top ten tips for these policy areas, drawn from the full programme that we thrashed out in Opposition, would be as follows, concentrating in particular on Prevent -
1) The new Government must put its integration strategy first and foremost. This means controlling our borders; ensuring that people settling in Britain speak English properly; encouraging the teaching of the narrative of British history in schools; curbing the translation of official documents into foreign languages, cracking down on unacceptable cultural practices such as forced marriages, female genital mutilation and honour killings, taking up Pauline's suggestion of a national holiday to celebrate the Queen's Birthday, and implementing David Cameron's National Citizenship Programme.
2) According to the Security Services, the main challenge to our national security is posed by Muslims who claim violence on the basis of religion, but there's also a serious threat from neo-nazis who claim violence in the name of race.
3) Prevent should therefore be targeted not at violent extremism (the individual acts of terror) but at extremism itself - at the ideologies which are the soil from which violence grows. Government has a particular responsibility to do this in institutions that it funds and controls, either partly or wholly, such as schools, Universities and prisons.
4) Although it's often undesirable for the state to deal with people on the basis of religion, the new Government has no choice but to take a special interest in British Islam.
5) However arduous this task may be - since most politicians are neither Muslims nor theologians, let alone Muslim theologians - Ministers have no choice but to try to encourage the further development of a British Islam fully at ease with British Parliamentary democracy. I'm an admirer of the traditional, classical Islam, and have written about it here.
6) This shouldn't mean throwing public money at British Muslims or another other religious group. Ministers, rather, should encourage the private, voluntary and independent sectors to support the development of mainstream British Islamic institutions.
7) Government should engage with Islamic religious institutions in much the same way as it engages with those of other faith communities. However, Ministers shouldn't treat bodies which claim to represent British Muslims, such as the Muslim Council of Britain, as though they do (which they don't).
8) The Coalition should hold an independent review of Prevent as soon as possible - to determine whether or not it's provided the taxpayer with value for money.
9) Whatever that review concludes, the DCLG should reverse Labour's policy on how Preventing Violent Extremism funds are spent. The last Government stood back when it should have intervened (some taxpayers' money ended up in the hands of extremists, as I've noted before here) and intervened when it should have stood back (Ministers tried to impose a specific targets regime for the PVE fund on councils). Local authorities know their communities better than Westminster and Whitehall, and if they want to use Prevent money for cohesion work they should be allowed to do so.
10) The new Government should set out transparent criteria in relation to -
* Formal meetings with Ministers or other Government representatives.
* The sharing of platforms by Ministers and other Government representatives.
* The admission of individuals to Britain from abroad.
* The funding of individuals and groups by the taxpayer.
11) Ministers and other Government representatives shouldn't formally meet people who support attacks on British troops; who back attacks on civilians as a matter of policy, or who incite hatred and violence. (I'm obviously exempting the security services, who must as a matter of course meet such people, probe their thinking and explore their long-term intentions.)
12) Ministers and other Government representatives shouldn't share platforms with people who support attacks on British troops; who back attacks on civilians as a matter of policy, or who incite hatred and violence.
13) Visitors who travel to this country intending to support attacks on British troops, back attacks on civilians as a matter of policy, or who incite hatred and violence should be barred from entry by Ministers. During the last Parliament, David Cameron led the charge on banning Yusuf Al-Qaradawi.
14) When taxpayers' money concerned, an even higher standard should be set. Obviously, individuals or groups that share platforms with people who support attacks on British troops; who back attacks on civilians as a matter of policy, or who incite hatred and violence should receive public money. Neither should any individual or group that fails to support shared values. My test of these values would be whether the group or individual concerned supports the basic framework of British Parliamentary democracy.
15) It follows from all this that people with extremist views shouldn't be permitted to act as advisers to the Government or to such public bodies as the police. Under Labour, this happened - not very frequently, but too often none the less. Consider the cases of Azad Ali, reported on Harry's Place here and here and, in relation to the police only, Mohammed Ali Harrath, also reported on Harry's Place here and here.
Paul Goodman
