The Centre For Social Cohesion

Well, if it is not in the hands of those who in the present context we might cheerfully wish to describe as being the usual suspects, in whose hands does London’s safety rest according to this august counter-terrorism expert?

Can’t think?

No worries, I’ll put you out of your agonies – or rather, for the discerning reader, into them.

According to former Detective Inspector Lambert, London’s safety now rests in the hands of its resident coterie of Islamists.

These are the people who are leaders of the various assorted Muslim organisations that, as reported in yesterday’s posting on the CSC website, last Saturday night staged a vigil outside no 10 Downing Street to protest at what they claim is Britain's rampant Islamophobia and double-standards that work to the disadvantage of its Muslim community.

The organisations that organised and supported this vigil and that are led by openly Islamist sympathisers and supporters include the Muslim Council of Britain, the British Muslim Forum, the British Muslim Initiative, the Muslim Association of Britain, the Islamic Human Rights Commission, the Islamic Forum of Europe, IslamExpo, the World Islamic Mission, and the Young Muslim Organisation of UK.

(You may read about the affiliations and attitudes of quite a few of them by looking them up in the A to Z of Islam in the UK on the Centre of Social Cohesion's website.)

It is in the hands of the leaders of these organisations -- of whom, as I say, many are openly Muslim Brotherhood members or sympathisers -- that the safety of the capital now resides in the opinion of the former counter-terrorism chief.

Former Detective Inspector Lambert was reported as having delivered this assessment in last week’s Guardian. He made his assessment in the context of criticising Gordon Brown’s recent decision to deny entry to Britain of Muslim Brotherhood member, Sheikh Yusuf Al Qaradawi. The former Detective Inspector was quoted as having said:

“Qaradawi is clearly useful in countering al-Qaeda propaganda. He is held in high esteem: how can we think meaningfully about enlisting credible Muslim community support against al-Qaeda if we’re not prepared to engage constructively with the likes of Qaradawi?

“The government’s approach is increasingly to lump all Islamist groups together. But Islamists can be powerful allies in the fight against al-Qaeda. Our experience shows they can be the levers that helps get young people away from the most dangerous positions….

“It’s a genuine issue of London’s safety…. Let’s be clear who it is that can keep London safe in the run-up to the Olympic Games.”

What do I think of this risk assessment about in whose hands the safety of London now lies?

So far as concerns Muslim Brotherhood supporters and sympathisers, I regard them all as very dubious allies indeed in the war against terror.

I am not suggesting any would engage in or support any acts of violent extremism in Britain, although many are quoted as being openly prepared to support such acts when carried out by the likes of Hamas against Israeli civilians.

For a very good expose of just how dubious it would be to rely for our security on the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters, see an article in this month’s issue of Commentary by Joshua Muravchik and Charles P. Szrom, entitled ‘In Search of Moderate Muslims’.

For an even better critique of this Commentary article for being too complacent about how dangerous the Muslim Brotherhood are, as also, according to this same article, it is for the West to expect to receive any genuine support from their sympathisers, see Bruce Thornton's article ‘Muslim “Moderates”: What’s in Word?’.

A third very good piece to echo the same theme is 'Moderate Muslims turning radical? - Unintended consequences of tolerating Islam' by Willam J. Federer, posted recently on the website of Christian Worldview Network.

As to former Detective Inspector Lambert's claim that London's safety now depends on its resident Islmaists, I would have been quite happy to write it off as a piece of British security ‘takiyya’, delivered as a parting gesture by the retiring Special Branch officer -- but for one recurring thought that keeps nagging at me.

That thought is that the Muslim Contact Unit of which the retiring officer until recently was head, was created shortly after the Al Qaeda attack on New York in September 2001. Its aim was precisely to prevent London sustaining any similar such attack.

As a Home Office memorandum put it at the time:

“The unit works in partnership with the managers of mosques that are under threat from extremism. By supporting the valuable work that these mosque leaders are already undertaking…, [t]he unit has been influential in protecting young Muslims from recruitment attempts.”

Well, we all know that the endeavours of this unit to prevent young British Muslim from being recruited to Al Qaeda was far from being 100% successful. The unit relied on consulting with London mosque leaders. Not a few of these are the Muslim Brotherhood members and sympathisers who lead the organisations involved in last Saturday's vigil outside No 10. This is what makes me very worried that, until as recently as last week, the former head of this unit should have still been wishing to claim London’s safety resided with them.

On the very same day and just before the London tube train bombings of 7 July 2005, the then recently appointed head of London’s Metropolitan Police, Sir Ian Blair, had boasted to an interviewer on BBC Radio Four's Today programme about just how safe and secure his force had made London. Thus, there need be no security worries about the 2012 Olympics being staged there, as only the day before it had been announced that they would.

For my money, I’d far sooner place London’s security in the hands of a new bi-partisan pair of Parliamentary Committees, as proposed by RUSI in an important report published last week, entitled ‘Risk, Threat and Security: The case of the United Kingdom’. One of their functions would be to undertake ‘strategic risk and threat assessment’.

Personally, I would have thought it a betting certainty that the 2012 Olympics are going to be a security nightmare. They will be a security nightmare, I predict, even should no terrorist attack occur in London during them, although I do not rule one out. They will still be a security nightmare because of how easily the Games could be ruined just by false alarms.

These Games are going to cost a fortune, indeed they already have.

They might well have to be called off at the last minute, should the security services get word of some major imminent attack. That would be crippling financially in return for very little positive result.

Given how easy for havoc to be caused just by the threat of an attack, surely the right course of action for Britain would be to return its invitation to host the 2012 Games, on the grounds that the post- 7/7 capital can no longer be a sufficiently safe place in which to host them.

I would frankly sooner place London’s security on its turning down the 2012 Olympics than place it in the hands of its resident coterie of Islamists.

But, then, what is my judgement about this matter next to that of the former head of London’s Muslim Contact Unit?