In late February 2006 Mohammed Irfan Raja, a 17-year-old schoolboy from
Ilford, east London, packed a bag and left home, apparently bent on pursuing
Islamist terrorism. On his computer was a martyrdom song and under his
mattress a letter he had left for his parents.
It said he was going to fight abroad and promised: “We will meet in the garden
of paradise.” It added: “PS. Just in case you think I am going to [do]
something in this country, you can rest easy that I am not.”
In fact Raja headed not abroad but to Bradford, where he met other British
Muslims who had been downloading extremist material about suicide attacks
and bomb-making. Raja stayed with his new-found friends for three days.
A few weeks later, another group of British citizens began meeting in private,
talking about jihad and discussing radical ideas. They were a rather
different bunch, though not without military expertise. They included Field
Marshal the Lord Inge, Lord Salisbury, scion of the noble political family,
General Sir Rupert Smith and Gwyn Prins, a historian.
Last week these diverse faces of modern Britain collided with explosive force.
First, Raja and four of his associates were acquitted by the Court of Appeal
of terrorist offences, despite the horrible nature of the material they had
viewed and downloaded, which included graphic images of US troops being
killed in Iraq.
The judgment appeared to be a severe blow to Britain’s fight against terror,
blasting a hole in laws intended to nip attacks in the bud.
Two days later Prins and Salisbury let loose a cri de coeur entitled Risk,
Threat and Security, which was the fruit of their group’s discussions. The
report, published through the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think
tank, declared Britain’s security to be at risk and its vulnerability to be
down to a “loss of confidence in our own identity, values, constitution and
institutions”.
Blaming multicultural Britain, the report concluded with a classic soundbite:
“We look like a soft touch. We are indeed a soft touch, from within and
without.”
It was a gift to headline writers. “Soft touch UK”, blared one newspaper;
“Britain a soft touch for home grown terrorists”, read another.
The government naturally rejected the charges, intoning: “The safety and
security of our citizens is the government’s main priority.”
One liberal think tank described the RUSI report as “to use the vernacular,
bollocks”. Yet a security expert at another think tank called it “one of the
most impressive pieces of work I have seen for years”.
The public could be forgiven for being confused. What is the reality of
Britain’s efforts to combat terrorism: impressive or rubbish? Soft or tough?
The RUSI report and the case of Raja and his codefendants reflect two
important strands in Britain’s engagement with terror: the strength of our
security apparatus and the nation’s cultural identity.
Even in the security services few would argue that Britain has been growing
soft on terror; rather, the trend has been the other way.
In the past seven years, the government has brought in four acts of parliament
dealing directly with terrorism. New offences and penalties have been
created, alongside new powers for the police and intelligence services. The
measures include detention without charge for up to 28 days – which
ministers want to increase to 42 days – control orders (virtual house
arrest), restrictions on protest and free speech, and offences of acts
“preparatory to terrorism”.
Nor can the security services claim to be short of funds. After the London
suicide bombings in July 2005, the budget covering MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, the
eavesdropping centre, rose 65% to a figure that will be more than £2 billion
this year.
MI5’s manpower will nearly double to 3,600 by this April (compared with 2001)
and it has massively expanded operations against 200 suspected terror groups
comprising about 2,000 individuals.
MI5 has also set up regional offices in Birmingham, Man-chester, Leeds,
Cardiff, Glas-gow and other cities. Officials say it is developing what it
calls a “rich picture” of local extremism.
“It’s basic intelligence work. You need to start from a position of knowing
who you’ve got and where they are on your patch,” one official said. “That
requires increasing the depth and breadth of our understanding of local
communities.”
A formidable trio of new officials is set to continue this transformation.
Charles Farr, director-general of the new Office for Security and
Counter-Terrorism, is recruiting 200 hand-picked civil servants to counter
Muslim radicalisation. “He has really shaken things up,” said an official
who knows him.
Jonathan Evans, the new boss of MI5, is seen as a tough and effective
operator, as is Bob Quick, who becomes the Metropolitan police’s assistant
commissioner in charge of antiterrorism in 10 days’ time.
The security services claim more than 20 Islamist terror plots in Britain have
been thwarted, with only one succeeding. More than 1,000 people have been
arrested under terrorism laws and more than 200 of them convicted.
Raja and his associates were caught up in this tough new approach. They were
charged with possessing material “for a purpose connected with the
commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism”. They were
found guilty and sentenced to a total of 13 years in jail. Given that they
had committed no attacks, it was hardly an example of being soft on terror.
When the Appeal Court overturned that judgment last week – the government is
considering an appeal to the law lords – many people were confused. Why,
they asked, were people jailed for downloading child pornography, but not
for downloading violent jihadi material?
The answer is that the law on child pornography is clear: it is an offence to
take, make or possess indecent photographs of children.
By contrast, the Appeal Court decided the law on what constitutes material
preparatory to terrorism is far from clear. Explosives are one thing, jihadi
videos another. The judges decided the prosecution had not proven Raja and
the others were really going to carry out any attacks.
The acquittals were down to badly drafted law, not softness on terror.
Keith Vaz, Labour chairman of the Commons home affairs committee, said: “We
have some of the toughest laws in the civilised world and they are about to
get tougher.”
But for Prins the detection and conviction of extremists is the end point of a
more important part of the fight against terrorism: disseminating a vision
of British values so the various communities that live here do not become
radicalised.
Dean Godson, a security expert at the think tank the Policy Exchange, said of
the report: “It doesn’t deal with specific legislation or whether we need 25
extra battalions or whatever. It deals with vital but unobvious elements.
It’s very impressive on how soft power – such as education – can impact on
hard power.”
The RUSI report presents a damning analysis of the UK, saying the country
“presents itself as a target, as a fragmenting, postChristian society,
increasingly divided about interpretations of its history, about its
national aims, its values and in its political identity”.
This is only made worse “by the firm self-image of those elements within it
who refuse to integrate”.
In short, a weak and flabby national culture has, by bending over backwards to
accommodate outsiders, left itself open to attack by strong-minded radicals.
The divide is evident on popular UK websites. Yesterday one called Islambase
carried an article entitled Democracy (False Religion), declaring that
parliament is “haram” – unlawful or forbidden – because its laws
should not be preferred to sharia Islamic law.
Another article, called Integration, listed “forbidden types of integration”
including voting and going to a cinema, swimming pool or nightclub.
Opinion polls have shown that extreme views are held by significant
minorities. An ICM survey of British Muslims in 2006 found that a fifth of
respondents had “some sympathy with the feelings and motives” of the London
suicide bombers.
Critics of the RUSI report say there are more complicated factors at work
behind terrorism. Ian Kearns, deputy director of the Institute for Public
Policy Research, said: “[The report] is a spurious account of how divided we
are. It’s even more spurious to say that makes us ripe for being a target
for terrorism.
“Their analysis is shockingly poor. It ignores other reasons for
radicalisation, including the social exclusion of young Pakistani men.”
Nevertheless, Kearns agrees there is a need for an “essential minimum” in
being part of British society, including “a belief in democratic values, the
rule of law and a commitment to nonviolence”.
For many years under Labour, that minimum was lacking. Preachers of hate, such
as Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada, were allowed to spout violent antiwestern
messages so freely that the capital was dubbed “Londonistan”. Britain was
soft and, as the historian Michael Burleigh puts it, “in the extremist mind,
tolerance equates to degeneracy”.
Some politicians have since rowed back from multiculturalism. Gordon Brown has
emphasised British values. The government has brought in new rules on
citizenship. And Abu Hamza was eventually jailed for soliciting murder and
inciting racial hatred; he is likely to be extradited to the US on other
charges.
Yet it remains a sensitive topic. The furore surrounding the RUSI report has
made some interested parties reluctant to fan the flames. The Equality and
Human Rights Commission declined to comment for this article, saying the
views of its chairman, Trevor Phillips, are well known. He has said that
multiculturalism has led to Britain “sleepwalking to segregation”.
But the question remains: after decades of multiculturalism, is there a way
back?
Godson believes there is, citing the way the apparently immovable power of the
trade unions in the 1960s and 1970s was overcome.
“People said it was inescapable. You had to talk to Jack Jones [boss of the
transport workers’ union]; you had to talk to Arthur Scargill [the miners’
leader].
“Lord Salisbury [of the RUSI panel] was first elected with Margaret Thatcher:
he saw that you could have a sea change, that attitudes can be turned round.”
The problem is finding the long-term political will to do so.
