by Pat McFadden
The Prime Minister has hardly communicated energy in the fight against Islamist extremism with his yo yoing holiday plans but it’s not his physical location that matters most – it is the lack of a strong and clear plan to fight the battle in which we are engaged.
The ISIS killing spree targeting Christians, Yazidis and fellow Muslims, and the brutal horrific murder of American journalist James Foley should leave us in no doubt, if there was any in the first place, that we have to face up to the threat posed by the ideology which drives these actions.
The Prime Minister terms this a generational struggle. He is right about that. Yet he cannot bring himself to will the means to fight it because government decision making is imprisoned by the past, in particular by the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and by the Prime Minister’s immediate decision following last year’s Parliamentary vote on Syria to take the option of military intervention off the table.
Public opinion in both the UK and the US is war weary for understandable reasons. Many lives have been lost and many brave young servicemen and women have suffered life altering injuries as a result of long military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet opting out of this battle is neither possible nor in the end desirable because we have to defend our way of life, stand up for our freedoms and combat an ideology of mass murder based on a gross perversion of faith. We don’t have a choice about whether to engage in this fight. If we don’t go to it, it is coming to us.
In that regard, the government’s decision a couple of years ago to abolish Control Orders and give terror suspects in the UK new freedoms to move around the country and access the internet – and to put a sunset clause on the weakened regime even if the threat level posed by the person had not changed – now looks even more reckless and irresponsible than it did at the time.
The wrong analysis led to the wrong policy. The Government came to office believing that the laws of the land posed a threat to our liberty. But while security and liberty always have to be carefully balanced it is not the law of the land – heavily scrutinised by parliament and the judiciary – which poses a threat to our freedoms. That threat is posed by the ideology which saw James Foley beheaded on the internet and which would inspire the people who carried out this crime to target people in this country too.
It is estimated that hundreds of young British Muslims are in Syria or Iraq, fed a daily diet of hatred towards the democratic tolerance of the country in which they were born and which gave them much. But the values of their country are nowhere to be seen in what they are doing now. “Convert or die” could not be further removed from the spirit of a country like the UK where people are free to go to the mosque on Friday, others to the synagogue on Saturday, others to church on Sunday, or, as many choose, not to bother with organised religion at all.
Real as the threat is, there is an unwillingness which crosses boundaries of left and right to go beyond the delivery of aid to the victims as a response. British policy is gripped by a mood that says short of an invading army scaling the cliffs of Dover, because of our recent past, military intervention can’t be the answer and in any case is unlikely to be approved by Parliament or the public. This is reflected in the mantra repeated at the beginning of virtually every government statement in recent days that whatever happens there will not be boots on the ground.
This is informed by the notion that somehow what we do governs what the jihadists do. But the extremism that drives what we are seeing has its own agenda, outwith any policy the West has. September 11th happened two years before the invasion of Iraq. There has been no Western military intervention in Syria yet that is where the virulent extremism that drives ISIS is strongest. It’s not always about us. But it does affect us and threaten us and that is why we must understand and respond.
We cannot define the struggle we are in and then not will the means to fight it. We have to loosen the grip of the mood that is imprisoning our policy and free ourselves to use every means at our disposal to fight the extremism that drives ISIS – both domestically and internationally. To do so does not mean there will be a repeat of the Iraq invasion of 2003 but ruling options out or refusing to reconsider domestic mistakes in legislative change is inhibiting us in responding to the threat we face.
Humanitarian help for those driven from their homes by the newly declared Islamic State is certainly essential. And the UK is rightly proud of its record in this arena. But bottles of water and tents alone are not enough for those staring down the barrel of a gun.
It is time to close the gap between analysis of the problem and equipping ourselves to deal with it. This gap is created by fear that the Iraq war and last year’s decision on Syria means anything more than aid for the victims of ISIS must be off the table. But we have to stop looking back and match what is happening here and now with both the resolve and the means to combat it.
Pat McFadden is Labour MP for Wolverhampton South East
Tags: control orders, David Cameron, Iraq, Isil, ISIS, islamism, Pat McFadden, Syria
“… fed a daily diet of hatred towards the democratic tolerance of the country in which they were born and which gave them much”
But surely Islam is a Religion of Peace, and Diversity Enriches Us All? Tony Blair said said it is ‘right’ that the country is made up of different cultures and faiths mixing together. In time the British people will reward the Labour Party for it’s enthusiastic drive to diversity through mass immigration.
How on earth did you end up as an MP.
A quickie – you continually use ‘our’. Our way of life, standards, laws etc etc are incompatable with middle eastern states. Not a little bit, not a lot, – totally. And always will be.
If we go back to war on the middle east over ‘our’, then to the people of the middle east we will quickly be perceived – yet again – as conquering crusaders.
Mind you, you’re only a worthless war-mongering Blairista. You voted against investigating the Iraq war, the Royal Mail workers want your head on a spike (job for ISIS there) and I believe you were mind-numbingly thick enough to vote for the Iraq war were you not? And you abstained in the Workfare Bill – utterly disgusting.
Yeah, nice party political point made, there, Comrade. Somehow it’s all the Tories’ fault that you people embarked on overseas adventures with insufficient funding allocated, an utter lack of strategic vision, no defined end state and a consistent lack of support for the luckless sods sent out to be shot at in Basra and Helmand – and specifically the Tories’ fault that the pointless, totalitarian legislation you put in place was quite rightly abolished as illiberal, futile and absolutely not in line with the threat it purported to address? I gather it’s all Cameron’s fault that the perception that the UK was fighting a war on Islam, thus leading to radicalisation of many of our young people, mobilising themselves to defend their faith (wrong-headedly) was created by those same overseas adventures?
Labour – leave foreign policy and defence alone, you don’t understand it and you’re a bit bloodthirsty (for others’ blood) for my taste. Stick to, well, perhaps not the economy or education, or health, for that matter. All-women shortlists, that’ll do – have a long conversation with yourselves about that, it’s perfect; no-one outside the party cares and you won’t do any harm.
@Tafia: this is worrying, I didn’t think we were meant to agree….
It would be best if Blairites avoided foreign policy. Why not just stick to trying to eat bacon sandwiches? Then the only harm you’ll do is to your own reputations.
I find pieces like this to be absolutely lacking in self examination.
It was the last Labour government that increased immigration, no matter the threat to the British people, to rub our noses in diversity and anybody who complained was a racist bigot.
Allowing some of these people into this country, not all, has made this country a worse place to live – Political Correctness has destroyed free speech and the brutalisation of our young girls in some Northern cities has shown that the Left are quite willing to turn a blind eye to any evil as long as it fits in with their desire to destroy our way of life.
One of the most prominent evils of the last Labour government was to subvert our constitutional liberties to achieve their aims.
The Labour party are now the enemy of the white working class.
An interesting piece – it’s unusual to see somebody actually mount a stout defence of failing to learn from history, rather than just doing it implicitly.
Pat also practices what he preaches – for example saying “September 11th happened two years before the invasion of Iraq” and concluding that western foreign policy didn’t contribute to it, as if there wasn’t any western foreign policy in the middle east in the century leading up to the September 11th attacks, or in any country except for Iraq.
That said, what’s odd about it is that (apart from control orders) it’s so vague about what “dealing with” ISIS is actually supposed to mean. Who do you want to bomb specifically, and who do you want to arm? Presumably the idea is going to be to arm the person the same people wanted to bomb this time last year, and bomb the people we were complicit in arming. If this makes you think maybe we should stop listening to these people, that’s because you’re “imprisoned by the past”.
I read this article and don’t really understand what Mr McFadden is proposing here:
We cannot define the struggle we are in and then not will the means to fight it. We have to loosen the grip of the mood that is imprisoning our policy and free ourselves to use every means at our disposal to fight the extremism that drives ISIS – both domestically and internationally. To do so does not mean there will be a repeat of the Iraq invasion of 2003 but ruling options out or refusing to reconsider domestic mistakes in legislative change is inhibiting us in responding to the threat we face.”
I can suggest some option he may wish to consider:
-stripping all human rights and British citizenship from anyone who fights on behalf of ISIS and refusing them re-entry into the UK
– stripping British citizenship from anyone who gives any kind of support – physical or otherwise to ISIS – including – but not limited to – by writing or speech. This to include all UK citizens including MPs. And sending them by one way ticket to Iraq.
– seizing all assets of anyone supporting ISIS in anyway – including those jointly owned with others.
– Huge fines for any bank or other financial institutions who directly or indirectly assist ISIS in any financial operation of any type.
After all if we are serious that ISIS is such a threat, the above is the very minimum we could do.
Once we have done all the above, we can contemplate more direct action.
Until we show how abhorrent ISIS and its supporters are, any toleration of any supporters of it as UK citizens is effectively support of ISIS.
Needless to say, it is not going to happen.
If Mr McFadden was serious, he would be tabling a motion for something like the above in Parliament but words are cheap.
Pat is the perfect example of why Labour is rubbish at Foreign Policy.
In fact Labour has no Policy on Foreign Affairs.
I’ve just spent the day in London 3 hrs at the Imperial War Museum. ( Please drop in if you have time, its no longer fuddy duddy, but has been greatly revised, and drop the the ‘Imperial’ and just rename it ‘The War Museum). Because I wanted to know how War was being portrayed. Its not all about heroics, in fact the Ashcroft Gallery is a complete waste of time as it portrays War as heroic; you win medals the Victoria Cross Ashcroft has over 100 of them; but the people who won them the last thought on their mind was heroics; they just wanted to survive and help their mates.
The most moving display was The Holocausr Museum, aa Museum within a Museum,
which showed the rise of Hitler and his downfall; the absolute disgrace that the Nazis were, and I thought the resmblance with the atrocities committed by ISIS are exactly like the Nazis. Hitler was elected democratically with the support of the working class, which just goes to prove how fickle they are. And you can draw so many anaologies with present day and the rise of far right Parties.
I also learnt of the disgraceful behaviour of the Russians who helped Hitler out in Partioning Poland. But I’ll return to that later, and the appaling genocide and mass murder of the German people, then, not now. My main point for now is, we shouldn’t be surprised that we don’t learn from history. why should we; its a different generation.
BTW this seems like a good time to link to Robert Newman’s The History of Oil:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIpm_8v80hw
Some of this is a bit bonkers, but the relevant point here is that these wars have an actual historical context.
The narratives of the people who want to fight the next war never work unless they can get you to forget about all the previous ones, hence Pat’s classic “there we were minding our own business when suddenly out of the clear blue sky SEPTEMBER 11TH”.
And this is the quality of Labour MP ?
Ivasion of Iraq…..er…….Blair of LABOUR
Failure to act in Syria….er…Miliband of LABOUR
Mass immigration…..er …Blair / Brown of LABOUR
Diversity, Inclusivity, Pandering and other PC bollocks…er…LABOUR
We are reaping what we sow. If you really want to tackle it….
1. Death penalty for terrorists
2. Those who have gone to fight NOT allowed back in
3. Repatriation of the thousands of Islamic prisoners in British jails
4. Immediate stop on all immigration from Islam countries
5. All Islamic asylum seekers out
6. Out of the ECHR
The US now considers the UK the weak link in the fight against terrorism. Ever since France kicked out several hundered Islamic terrorists in the early 90’s, most of whom came to the UK, we have been a soft touch. We have chosen to pander to the Muslim religion and when you get buffoons like Rowan Williams saying we should incoporate Sharia Law into UK law then the left wing establishment has really lost the plot.
The dummy politicians then wonder why UKIP do so well !!
Madasafish = – seizing all assets of anyone supporting ISIS in anyway – including those jointly owned with others.
– Huge fines for any bank or other financial institutions who directly or indirectly assist ISIS in any financial operation of any type.
As a point of interest, do you not think Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar might be a bit annoyed of you do that?
And how about us and the Americans in ISIS early days sending them equipment? Do you propose us confiscating all America’s stuff and they confiscating all ours? And Israel likewise? Does that mean we will support Hamas?
Madasafish = – seizing all assets of anyone supporting ISIS in anyway – including those jointly owned with others.
– Huge fines for any bank or other financial institutions who directly or indirectly assist ISIS in any financial operation of any type.
As a point if interest, do you not think Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar might be a bit annoyed of you do that?
And how about us and the Americans in ISIS early days sending them equipment? Do you propose us confiscating all America’s stuff and they confiscating all ours? And Israel likewise? Does that mean we will support Hamas?
Steve,have Blairites jade a point of eating a bacon sandwiches,unless Ed miliband is a secret Blairite
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/25/iraq-crisis-islamic-state-limits-kurdish-peshmerga