It’s hard to hold anyone responsible for anything today in British politics. That’s because no sooner have the facts emerged than everybody in Westminster has played another game of musical chairs. If the word ‘amusing’ can be used in the same paragraph as ‘attempted beheading’ allow me one amusing example.
Last month, a 30-year-old asylum seeker from Sudan allegedly attempted to behead a local man on the streets of Belfast. The attack was apparently caught on video. Everyone was geared up to make their points. The left was preparing to argue ‘So you’re saying all asylum seekers are beheaders, are you?’, while the right was gearing up to say: ‘We must hold people accountable.’ Then it turned out that at the time our lovely Sudanese import had been fast-tracked into the country, the home secretary was Suella Braverman and the immigration minister was Robert Jenrick.
After the death of Widdecombe, Mahmood warned against ‘speculating’ on potential motives
The unfortunate fact that the Belfast suspect entered the country as Braverman and Jenrick were serving in a Tory government (both later defected to Reform) meant that neither the Tories nor Reform could make any political capital over this ghastly case. That is the way of our present politics. Historic immigration wave? Don’t worry, that’s five years and four prime ministers ago.
Which brings me to someone who turns out to be a relative constant of British politics: Shabana Mahmood. After Andy Burnham’s reshuffle, the Home Secretary stayed put. Which seems a good idea, given she’s doing as good a job as any Labour MP is likely to do in one of the hardest roles in government. But it also means I can ask what the hell she thought she was up to in relation to two terror-related cases of the past fortnight.
After the death of Ann Widdecombe, Mahmood was one of those who warned the public against ‘speculating’ on any potential motives. Fair enough. We know the drill. But then someone must explain to me how within not many hours of Widdecombe’s death, and the announcement that this country’s finest policemen were starting to think that it might have been a ‘targeted killing’, with counterterror police then leading the investigation, another story broke.
The weekend after Widdecombe’s death, Suffolk Police and Counter Terrorism Policing suddenly shut down an ‘Ijtima’ (an Islamic festival) at a rented stately home called Shrubland Palace, near Ipswich. On the Sunday morning, the Muslim attendees were told to evacuate the event. There was an armed police presence and a slew of speculation about what had happened. Within 24 hours both Mahmood and the now ex-prime minister Keir Starmer had plenty to say.
Starmer took to social media: ‘Shocking news that counterterrorism police are investigating a credible, serious threat targeted at an Islamic event in Suffolk. Thanks to the quick action taken by police and the organisers, nobody was hurt. My message is clear: I will not tolerate any attacks on our Muslim communities, or any form of anti-Muslim hatred.’ Meanwhile, Humza Yousaf, the former first minister of Scotland, claimed the incident could have been ‘a terrorist attack of unimaginable scale’.
Mahmood’s own public statement read: ‘Terrorism police are leading an investigation into a credible threat to those attending the UK Ijtima festival this weekend. I thank Suffolk Police, Counter Terrorism Policing, and the organisers for their swift and effective response that undoubtedly saved lives. Twelve individuals have now been arrested. I know this is deeply concerning news for British Muslims. We must stand against hatred and we must unite around our shared belief in a country that is open, generous and tolerant to all our communities.’
I quote all this at length because it’s interesting, isn’t it? As I pointed out last week, on one side of the ledger it seems to be ‘Don’t speculate. Don’t prejudice any trial’ and on the other it’s the Wild West. Suffolk police’s intervention ‘undoubtedly’ saved lives, says the Home Secretary. Only thanks to officers’ intervention ‘nobody was hurt’, announces the then prime minister.
Some readers will wonder why they have not heard more of this anti-Muslim 9/11- style plot. That is because it would appear that the men who were taken into police custody were flying a drone in the area or something similar, were interested in the events at Shrubland Palace and that there was absolutely no plan to carry out one of the biggest terrorist attacks in history. All of those arrested were released except one, who was charged with an unrelated offence.
By then, what remains of the Independent and other left-wing media had joined in, breaking rules they otherwise like to set. The former publication even ran a piece from an attendee of the festival. The contributor – an imam named Sohayb Peerbhai – described how he and other attendees ‘wondered if we would meet danger on our way out’, even after a large armed police presence had arrived on the scene. He described the whole thing as ‘a near miss’.
So I have to ask two things. First, it seemed to me when the Suffolk story broke that it was a little too convenient. A prominent anti-open-borders Reform spokeswoman had been beaten to death in her home. Strong sentiments were flowing. And then, as if to remind us that all sides and anyone can do something bad, along comes a ‘far-right extremism, anti-Muslim terror plot’ story, displayed on the BBC’s website alongside updates on the Widdecombe case. Why? And how did the police and the top of government get this so terribly wrong?
The second thing I have to ask – and I am sorry to have to do so two weeks in a row (but these are two weeks in which one government minister has remained in place, so allow me the luxury) – is: what is the difference in prejudicing a fair trial when it comes to the Widdecombe case and when it comes to the Suffolk ‘far-right, Islamophobic, mass-casualty terror event’ that wasn’t? Someone explain it, please?
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