David Cameron's speech attacking multiculturalism may seem to have come out of a clear blue sky, but its genesis can be traced back to long before he became prime minister. Indeed, in its tone and content it shares many similarities with a key speech made by Tony Blair in 2005, shortly after the London bombings.
Blair argued that the roots of violent Islamism were not "superficial but deep" and could be found "in the extremist minority that now in every European city preach hatred of the west and our way of life".
Those who perpetuated such an ideology, Blair claimed, play "on our tolerance and good nature … as if it is our behaviour that should change, that if we only tried to work out and act on their grievances, we could lift this evil … This is a misunderstanding of a catastrophic order."
But even though Blair returned to this argument recurrently, the Labour government was unable to resolve its internal battles over how best to combat violent extremism. The rows engulfed the government's chief response to the threat, articulated in its "Prevent" strategy, which originally sought to counter the spread of Islamism by empowering moderate voices in the Muslim world.
The Home Office and the Department for Communities vied with each other for cash and resources as they attempted to implement the strategy. Behind the scenes, ministers clashed over who should own the policy. A number of Muslim groups flagged concerns that senior civil servants were in thrall to Islamist organisations that preached non-violence in the UK but endorsed violent extremism abroad. There were even accusations that Prevent itself had been hijacked by extremist groups.
"There was this belief that supporting and reaching out to the non-violent extremists would prevent violent extremists from committing acts of terrorism," said Haras Rafiq, a founder of the Sufi Muslim Council and a director of Centri, an anti-extremism organisation. "It is clear that Cameron now believes that approach was muddled."
Cameron's speech signalled just how muddled he felt the approach had become. In the future, he pledged, only groups that would encourage integration would receive funding. "Let's properly judge these organisations," Cameron said. "Do they believe in universal human rights – including for women and people of other faiths? Do they believe in equality of all before the law?"
These questions will become increasingly important over the next few weeks as the government redrafts the Prevent strategy. Originally due to be unveiled in January, it now looks unlikely to appear until the summer.
As with Labour, the coalition is divided. Insiders say Cameron, along with education secretary, Michael Gove, the home secretary, Theresa May, and the security minister, Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, accept there has been too much of what the prime minister calls "passive tolerance" of extremist groups in recent years, while Nick Clegg and Baroness Warsi, the Tory party chairwoman, prefer a more multicultural approach.
Signs of the tension between both sides were evident last year when Warsi was due to attend the Muslim Global Peace and Unity conference in east London but pulled out under pressure from Tory party officials, who were alarmed at claims the event was to be attended by Islamist sympathisers.
Warsi was understood to be distraught at being unable to attend and used a speech last month at Leicester University – rumoured to have not been cleared by Tory party HQ – to warn that "Islamophobia has now crossed the threshold of middle-class respectability".
She said: "The drip-feeding of fear fuels a rising tide of prejudice. So when people get on the tube and see a bearded Muslim, they think 'terrorist' … when they hear 'halal', they think 'that sounds like contaminated food' … and when they walk past a woman wearing a veil, they think automatically, 'that woman's oppressed'. And what's particularly worrying is that this can lead down the slippery slope to violence."
As for the Liberal Democrats, many of their MPs and members will feel uneasy at Cameron's claim that multiculturalism has failed. The party has seen itself as distinct because of the way in which it embraces diversity. Nick Clegg was even prepared to stick his neck out in the election campaign in support of an amnesty for illegal immigrants, seeing it as an important badge of liberalism. Many Lib Dems will find being associated with Cameron's approach difficult.
Muslim groups were quick to voice fears that Cameron's speech was putting the UK on the same slippery slope, coming on the day the far-right English Defence League staged its largest ever rally in Luton.
"The prime minister chose to deliver his speech on a day when the extremists of the English Defence League will be marching on Luton to sow discord among our communities," said Farooq Murad, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain. "We find it very disappointing that, at a time when we should seek to stand together to fight violence and extremism, Mr Cameron omits any reference to this extremist group spreading hate and bigotry against British Muslims in towns and cities up and down this country."
But Cameron did use his speech to acknowledge the relationship between Islamophobia and the far right. "On the one hand, those on the hard right ignore this distinction between Islam and Islamist extremism and just say: 'Islam and the west are irreconcilable'," he said. "These people fuel Islamophobia. And I completely reject their argument."
Anti-fascist campaigners point out the EDL was formed in response to the rise of al-Muhajiroun, the now proscribed extremist organisation that glorified suicide bombers and influenced several British-born al-Qaida sympathisers jailed for terrorism. A mix of football hooligans, far-right supporters and disaffected white workers, the EDL lacks a common identity but is united in its target: Islam.
"The rise of the EDL can be seen as a failure by the British government to get to grips with Islamist extremism," said Maurice Cousins of the anti-far-right campaign group Nothing British.
Multiculturalism has, according to Cousins, helped Islamism flourish.
"We take the view that multiculturalism hasn't been the best way to integrate people in society," he said. "It ghettoises people into minority and majority groups with no common identity. You can argue in favour of pluralism, but multiculturalism says there's no one overriding culture and that causes divisions and makes society less cohesive."
Cameron signalled he had come down on the side of this argument. "The speech was an attempt to bring everything together," said James Brandon of Quilliam, the counter-extremism thinktank. "When they got into power, the government tried to draft anti-extremism policy in piecemeal form, but they've realised they need a bigger-picture approach to make sure every department is on the same page."
Insiders suggest it is likely Cameron's speech will trigger a further redrafting of the Prevent strategy. What eventually transpires will be radically different. "A lot of things were wrong with Prevent," Brandon said. "People were being loose with who the money was going to; they were working with the wrong people."
Having rejected the previous government's strategy, Cameron is now reverting to his default position, outlined in a speech he made in 2005 when shadow education minister. In the speech Cameron likened Islamist extremists to Nazis. "Just like the Nazis of 1930s Germany, they want to purge corrupt cosmopolitan influences," Cameron said.
Meanwhile, the EDL's website also invokes the Nazis. It carries a quote from Albert Einstein, a "refugee from Nazi Germany": "The world is a dangerous place to live in; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."
Indeed, at the march, several EDL members were quick to claim Cameron's speech reflected their own views. By waging war on one form of extremism, Cameron may unintentionally have given succour to another.
The Observer
