Birmingham has a long history of social segregation and Islamism

The campaign was so divisive that now Maccabi have said they won’t sell any tickets for away fans even if the ban was lifted.

Birmingham’s experience should have made its authorities more alert to the dangers of that kind of mobilisation. The city has produced some of the country’s most notorious terrorists. Moinal Abedin, Britain’s first al-Qaeda-inspired militant, was convicted in 2002 for plotting to manufacture explosives. A few years later, Parviz Khan led an al-Qaeda-linked cell that plotted to kidnap and behead a British soldier. Just last week three men in the Ward End, Saltley and Alum Rock areas of the city were arrested on terrorism offences. The list goes on and on and even in the last week, we have seen a chapter of the notorious Pakistan-based extremist group, Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan, campaign in Birmingham on the issue of the Gaza war. Such are the terrifying extremist links that traverse from Pakistan into some residents of the city.

It's why in May 2023, Robin Simcox, then the government’s Commissioner on Countering Extremism said, “there are significant challenges in Birmingham regarding extremism and community cohesion”.

The city’s challenge is therefore not abstract; it is measurable.

Yet rather than addressing the ideological roots of this problem, successive governments and local authorities have focused on softer language and community management. Terms like “Islamism” or “Islamist extremism” have become almost taboo, replaced by vague appeals to “tolerance” and “cohesion.” The result has been a vacuum in which genuine extremists can operate with impunity, claiming to speak for Muslims while silencing those within the community who reject their message.

One Birmingham imam, Asrar Rashid, said “When the Tel Aviv fans come to Birmingham in a few weeks, we will not show them rahma [mercy] in Birmingham,” comments that have understandably alarmed both Jewish residents and many Muslims who fear the damage such rhetoric does to their faith’s public standing.

But this wasn’t the first time he has made remarks which should concern fair minded members of the public. Last year, he was filmed asking rhetorically how much “the Yahud” would pay people to betray their religion. And it’s not just other faith groups he has taken aim at, in the same year he said that anyone who regarded the head of the Ahmadi movement as a Muslim were “kaffirs”, or unbelievers. The Ahmadi movement is a small and patriotic sect of Muslims which has regularly been maligned by sectarian parts of the more mainstream Sunni movement.

Whatever the intention, the effect of such language is to inflame division and to normalise contempt for entire communities. When clerics use their platforms to denigrate others or to treat political conflict as a test of religious loyalty, they distort the moral message of their faith.

This danger is compounded by Birmingham’s persistent social segregation. In areas like Sparkbrook, it is possible to live from one generation to the next within a closed circle, rarely interacting with those of different backgrounds. Many residents lead hardworking, decent lives, but this insulation leaves communities vulnerable to grievance-based narratives and to those who preach that separation is virtue. Officials, anxious not to appear discriminatory, have avoided naming this reality. In truth, refusing to discuss segregation has allowed it to deepen.

Of course, this is not to deny that there are some groups working together to challenge prejudice and build trust between communities. Yet they do so with limited support, while activists who trade in outrage command attention and followers. The imbalance matters. Every time inflammatory speech goes unchallenged, every time intimidation is rewarded with compliance, the message received by the public is that extremism dictates the terms of engagement.

That is what makes the West Midlands Police’s decision so troubling. By banning Maccabi fans rather than confronting those who threatened them, the authorities have inverted the principle of equal protection under the law.

It is therefore time that we ask the hard questions. Did the authorities in Birmingham fear repercussions from local Muslims when Maccabi Tel Aviv fans came to visit? And if they did, who stoked them up?

Instead of shielding potential victims from intimidation, they have effectively shielded the intimidators from scrutiny. This is precisely the dynamic that has allowed Islamist extremism to persist in parts of Britain: a cycle of avoidance dressed up as sensitivity.

Breaking that cycle will require more than rhetoric. It means clear-eyed leadership from civic and religious figures alike. Leadership that refuses to conflate criticism of extremism with hostility toward Islam. Muslim community voices who challenge ideological hardliners. Councils and police forces which distinguish between engaging with faith and capitulating to those who weaponise it.

Above all, the government’s counter-extremism strategy must once again treat Islamist ideology as a distinct and continuing threat, not merely one among many.

Birmingham remains one of Britain’s great cities, energetic, diverse and creative. But its history of extremism and present tensions show how quickly those strengths can be undermined when moral clarity gives way to timidity. The issue is not about football tickets; it is about whether our institutions still have the confidence to uphold universal principles in the face of sectarian pressure.

If we cannot defend the right of a visiting football club to play a match in safety, what hope do we have of defending the more fundamental rights that underpin our democracy?

Birmingham, and ultimately Britain, must decide whether appeasement will continue to masquerade as prudence, or whether we are ready at last to confront Islamist intimidation directly and without apology.

Fiyaz Mughal is the founder of Faith Matters and Muslims Against Antisemitism