Sajid Javid urges Britain to ‘confront Islamist ideology head on’

Former Cabinet minister says activists who cry ‘Islamophobia’ are a threat to peace and calls for national debate

The former British Home Secretary said a national debate was needed to discuss extremist issues. Reuters

Britain’s former home secretary Sajid Javid criticised activists who cry “Islamophobia” when attempts are made to tackle extremism, saying they threaten Britain’s efforts to protect the public from terrorism.

In a strongly worded article Mr Javid, a Muslim, said Islamism “clothes itself in the language of religion” but is really “a socially divisive and supremacist ideology, which seeks to reorder individual lives, societies and states”.

He also supported President Emmanuel Macron of France in his efforts to address the intellectual debate over violence in religion.

"I believe it is critical that we confront this ideology head on and call it for what it is. President Macron is right to recognise this intellectual battle, and to characterise Islamism as a form of separatism," he wrote in The Daily Telegraph.

Mr Javid, who was also previously chancellor of the exchequer, made the comments as part of an initiative launched by the Policy Exchange think tank to track the spread of Islamism in Britain.

“There are well-meaning officials who worry that Islamism, a term with credible and established meaning, could be seen as implicating the entire religion of Islam and all its diverse and peaceful adherents,” he said. “And there are woke activists who are quick to victim-blame the West and cry Islamophobia at all attempts to deal with the issue.”

He said there were some Islamist groups that sought to “distract us from the practice of what they preach”.

Islamism – often seen as making religion political – was an ideological virus that opposed liberal democracy and was responsible for inspiring terrorism, Mr Javid said. “It claims to speak for the Muslim community, yet is a twisted version of the great religion of Islam that billions follow around the world.”

He highlighted the recent atrocities in Paris and Vienna, as well as the 800 inquiries into terrorism ongoing in Britain. He also said that during lockdown, extremism, from militants of all groups, had flourished “with people spending much more time online being bombarded by conspiracy theories”.

Mr Javid, who could potentially return to government as foreign secretary in a Cabinet reshuffle, highlighted the need for a national debate to discuss extremist issues and said the Policy Exchange move was a welcome innovation.

The initiative is led by Sir John Jenkins, a former British ambassador to Saudi Arabia and co-author of the Government’s 2015 review on the Muslim Brotherhood, and Dr Martyn Frampton.

In a paper published on Sunday, they wrote: “The British Government must not cede ground to Islamists, who for decades have misleadingly claimed to be the representatives of true Islam, by failing to understand their motives, the roots of their ideology and the consequences of the social and political gains they seek to make.”