When it comes to Britain's security, immigration, Islamism and extremism policies, everything is upside down. The situation is beyond urgent. It’s a natural human instinct to connect events and look for patterns. Sometimes when we do that, we see things that aren’t really there. But sometimes we see things so clearly which we knew were there all along, and wonder why others remain blind to them.
This week, five men were arrested on suspicion of trying to blow up a UK military base. They were, it seems, spotted and reported only by chance, thanks to a local farmer in the middle of the night. They have already been released on bail, unlike the man who controversially slashed an illegal migrant boat. He is still in jail.
The air base in question was one the Islamic Republic of Iran had specifically mentioned as being a valid target of theirs. The warnings from our own intelligence chiefs could hardly have been clearer. In November 2022, MI5 Director General Ken McCallum warned that Iran sought to “kidnap or even kill” people in Britain, saying MI5 had already identified at least ten such threats that year. In February 2023, Security Minister Tom Tugendhat said Iran had gathered intelligence on UK-based Israeli and Jewish individuals in what he believed was preparation for “future lethal operations”, while reporting 15 credible threats to kill or kidnap people since early 2022. That July, the Foreign Office warned that Iranian intelligence had built relationships with organised criminal gangs in Britain and Europe. By October 2024, McCallum said the authorities had responded to 20 potentially lethal Iran-backed plots since January 2022; a year later, he said MI5 had tracked more than 20 potentially lethal Iran-backed plots since then.
Yet our Foreign Secretary made a point of shaking the hand of the Islamic Republic’s smirking Foreign Minister last week in New York.
Meanwhile, we learnt that a senior Hamas terrorist had been admitted to the UK by the last Conservative government, even though he was publicly known to be a bodyguard for senior Hamas leader and terrorist Ismail Haniyeh in the Gaza Strip, and the son of another. We cannot even discuss much about him because he was awarded 100 years of anonymity by a UK judge, and to do so would therefore be contempt of court.
We do know that, despite all this, he was given residence and citizenship in our country, and that he has now been arrested over advanced-stage preparations for a major terrorist attack against Jews in mainland Europe. It was not British intelligence that foiled his attempts, we are told, but Israeli and German intelligence. For us, he was not thought to have been a priority for the security services. Really.
So you can understand the concern shared by many that our Home Secretary has announced that the Government is reopening the UK Resettlement Scheme to new referrals, specifically prioritising Palestinians who have fled Gaza alongside Afghan women and girls. Yes, Gaza, from where we admitted the Hamas bodyguard we later gave citizenship, not long before he planned that mass-casualty Jew-shooting spree. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said the first arrivals would begin this year. The government says entrants will go through security and criminality checks. One wonders if they’ll be more thorough than the Hamas bodyguard’s.
How will we know what their criminal past is? If the Hamas government back home hasn’t imprisoned or convicted them, will we assume their clean record is a sign of good-natured brotherhood? What sort of cultural acclimatisation will they be given when they get here? Perhaps they’ll be given the government’s pamphlet on how not to rape people, because it’s not part of our culture. Maybe we’ll produce a new one on how not to plot mass killings and terror attacks – or have those, in fact, become part of British culture now?
And now consider who is making the decision to prioritise Palestinians for resettlement in Britain. Shabana Mahmood’s own political history on Israel is hardly a secret. She has described her support for "Palestinian rights” as lifelong. In 2014, she joined around 200 activists in direct action against a Birmingham Sainsbury’s over goods from Israeli settlements, lying down in the road and inside the shop until the store closed. She subsequently told a Gaza rally that the action had shut the supermarket at peak time and urged the audience to educate themselves about boycott campaigns and get involved. That has now become state policy here.
And just for good measure, the news broke that our taxes would be spent on new windows and solar panels for the £1.5 million five-bedroom council house in Hammersmith occupied solely by the wife of imprisoned terrorist the one and only Abu Hamza. If you’ll excuse the stupid question, why is she even living in a five-bedroom council house worth £1.5 million? Couldn’t it be better used to house five other Britons in need, with no connection to terrorists? Maybe you or I could receive £70,000 for solar panels and new windows, or do we have to pay for our own?
Then came our Foreign Secretary. He actually began his conference speech yesterday by invoking the attempted attack at RAF Fairford and declaring that Britain would “always stand up for our security against those who would do us harm”. Yet when he reached the Middle East, the concrete action he announced was directed entirely at Israel. He blamed the suffering of those in Gaza only on Israel, insisting it was inflicted by the Netanyahu government – “a stain on the conscience of the world”. He accused “settler terrorists” of ethnic cleansing, invoked evidence of Israeli war crimes and told those who had protested Labour’s previous Israel-related policy: “We hear you. You were right.”
When were they right? On October 7, 2023, when they first applied to hold an anti-Israel protest? When they intimidated Parliament, prompting the then-Speaker to express concerns for the safety of MPs engaged in a vote? When they vandalised the statue of Churchill, smashed up Jewish-owned businesses, or shattered a police officer’s spine? When their leaders were convicted of breaching conditions imposed under the Public Order Act during one of their constant protests? When they called for an intifada? When they shouted support for Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists? When they formed an intimidating mob outside a synagogue? They were right, were they?
Britain, he announced again, will ban imports from Israeli settlements and disrupt British finance, construction and services connected to them. And yes, he condemned Hamas’s October 7 massacre as “murderous” and promised to oppose those seeking Israel’s destruction. But there was no corresponding sanction, financial measure or new penalty announced against Hamas, the Palestinian Authority or any Palestinian institution, even as they continue to preach hatred of Jews or pay terrorists and their families for carrying out murderous attacks. In fact, he recently promised them £88 million of our money, with not a single qualifying action required on their part. Nothing.
So, in a speech that opened with terrorists allegedly targeting a British military base, our Foreign Secretary’s new programme of Middle Eastern punitive action was aimed at the democratic Western ally fighting Islamist terrorist organisations and Iranian proxies, not at any of those organisations or their sponsors.
It no longer matters why Labour is doing all this – whether it is to try to win back the West-hating, Jew-hating, Islamist or extreme-left portion of the electorate, or out of a genuinely misguided belief in these punitive and unconstructive policies – the damage to Britain is extreme, whatever the motivation. And the Conservatives weren’t exactly blameless when in office, either. Hamas terrorists, foreign extremists, those with immoral sexual cultural norms, subjugators of women or homosexuals – they’ve all been flocking to our green and pleasant land for years.
So forgive me if I sound like a broken record. It’s just that it’s getting harder and harder to bear. Not just for me. Not just for Jews. All of this harms Britain. It endangers us all. None of it makes sense. Yet it is only the start. We all know exactly where this is leading.
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