Labour is moving closer to Europe, at speed – except for one significant topic where it could really learn something from our Continental partners: the ever-thorny subject topic of how to do counter-extremism. There, the pace of convergence between Britain and the EU is glacial, at best.
The current Government’s approach towards political Islam is not just light years removed from that of the Trump Administration, which has designated select chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organisations; it is also far less robust than the postures adopted by many distinctly un-Trumpian EU member states.
Britain’s security establishment has effectively decided that non-violent Islamism is not their problem
Both the political classes and the permanent security systems of many Continental countries now treat political Islamists as adversaries to be called out and confronted, both ideologically and at law.
Thus, Sinan Selen – the Istanbul-born Director-General of the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s equivalent of MI5) – recently addressed a private breakfast in the Bundestag.
