Much of the attention following the killing of Sir David Amess MP has been focused on the rising volume of threats to MPs and the issue of online anonymity. These are very important, but a much broader set of questions around ideology is in danger of slipping from view. William Shawcross’ Independent Review of the counter-radicalisation Prevent strategy affords a major opportunity to address this imbalance and reset discussion in a neglected area of policy. Shawcross is due to report shortly to the Home Secretary.
Here are fourteen questions which emerge from the horrific events in Southend:

On the evening of Wednesday October 13, 2021, in the city of Kongsberg, some 50 miles from Oslo, five people were killed and two more were injured in a suspected terrorist attack by a lone perpetrator. The attacker, named Espen Andersen Bråthen, was armed with a bow and arrows. He was later apprehended and charged.

France’s Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, and the Minister for Citizenship, Marlène Schiappa, recently gave an interview with Le Figaro, reflecting on the first anniversary of Macron’s speech against “Islamist separatism”, which he delivered on October 2, 2020. Darmanin and Schiappa described how the French government has stepped up its efforts to tackle Islamist extremism in France, particularly after the approval by the National Assembly in July 2021, of the Law Reinforcing Respect of the Principles of the Republic, also called the “anti-separatism” bill. This includes a wave of measures against violent and non-violent Islamist extremism.

The Charity Commission is to investigate a London-based Islamic charity, the Miftahul Jannah Academy in Waltham Forest, after the National Secular Society reported that the charity’s website contained extremist sermons praising the Taliban and encouraging Muslims to fund jihadists. The charity’s website also hosted antisemitic audio recordings referring to the “dirty qualities” of Jews.

Three British Islamist organisations have helped spearhead an international campaign in commemoration of 9/11. The International Witness Campaign, according to its website, seeks to raise awareness not of the victims of global jihadist violence – which, incidentally, pre-dates 9/11 – but of the plight of “the millions of people affected across the globe” by what it calls “state sponsored violence” conducted since 9/11 and the beginning of the “War on Terror”.

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