The Blackshirts are back – this time round, though, the fascists are Islamofascists

For two years we have had to grow used to the streets of London and other cities being taken over by hate marches. The arguments around these marches – both for and against – have been made so many times that you don’t need me to go over it all again. But this weekend’s march was different – and far more concerning in its implications even than the hate marches.

There are certainly many who go on the national marches who are genuinely there for humanitarian reasons. They are horrified by the results of Israel’s military action in Gaza and have no other agenda. Many of their fellow marchers, however, do have another agenda. They do not really care about Gaza. What they care about is Jews – and not in a good way. For these people, the humanitarian marchers alongside them are what Lenin famously described as useful idiots. Their naivety is exploited by those with a more hateful ideology.

Which brings us to the Tower Hamlets march. As always on such “anti-racist” protests, the Trot antifa crowd were there alongside the Islamists. I’ve seen no clearer illustration of the reality of the so-called "Red-Green” alliance between the left and Islamists than an exchange recorded on one of the clips circulating on social media. A masked marcher says something inaudible, to which a protestor with a “Refugees Welcome” placard replies: “There’s no need for that, we’re on the same side, bruv.”

The masked marcher responds, witheringly, “No we’re not”.

“Yes we are, bro”, pleads the antifa demonstrator, the very definition of the useful idiot – utterly clueless about the reality of the ideology with which they are allying, and about what would befall him and his fellow leftists should the Islamists achieve their aim. They’re like the “Queers for Palestine” you see on the hate marches – fools who can’t comprehend that were they in rather than merely for Palestine they wouldn’t last long before the Islamists executed them.

The Tower Hamlets march was chilling as a more distilled version of the hate demonstrated on the national marches. Not just hate, but a programme and a cause: Islamist supremacy. The message was clear about Tower Hamlets: This is ours. We control the streets. We control the area. We control the people.

But the threat is far broader than Tower Hamlets. The last election showed how potent the Muslim sectarian vote can be, returning four MPs. That vote and that potency is only going to grow. The issue is not that a wave of sectarian Muslim MPs are about to sweep into power, but more insidious; that in their fear of rejection by these voters, Labour (and, as they have shown in a more limited way so far, Lib Dem) politicians will do what politicians always do: tack to where the votes are. Labour’s move to treat Israel no longer as an ally but an enemy, backing arrest warrants, sanctions, and recognition of Palestine is part of this process.

But the Islamist agenda is far wider than Israel and the Jews, and the scenes in Tower Hamlets show how threatening, confident and well supported the Islamists now are. There is a radicalism that is not merely unafraid to show itself but which exults in its strength.

The warning signs have been there for years, and as a society we have done next to nothing about any of it beyond a focus (understandable and correct) on the terror threat. But that is the extreme end of the Islamist spectrum. The radical Islamism on display in Tower Hamlets is a demonstration of that failure. And we are nowhere near even accepting the scale of its threat, let alone understanding how to tackle it.