Brussels Terrorist Attacks

Lord Walney Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I understand my hon. Friend’s comments. The Jewish community in the UK has seen an increase in the number of anti-Semitic incidents over the last couple of years. That is a great cause of concern for us, and the Government are working in several ways to ensure a proper response to those incidents and to send out the message collectively—it is important that the House sends it, as the Prime Minister has done in the last few days—that we condemn anti-Semitic incidents. The Jewish members of our community are as much a part of our British community as are the Muslim, Hindu, Sikh and Christian members and those members who are of no faith. We are one community and must do everything we can to stop these terrible anti-Semitic incidents.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

Further to an earlier question, does the Home Secretary accept that the best people to make the point that Daesh is perverting the true faith of Islam are not herself, the Prime Minister or any non-Muslims, but any and all Muslim groups here and abroad who reject violent jihadism? Is she prepared to make the sometimes difficult calls to empower and back groups here and potentially regimes abroad who do that, even if they might not accord with all the liberal, secular and democratic values we rightly hold dear in this place?

[Mrs May]

The Government work with those who wish to send that message to counter the narrative of the perverted Islam that comes from the ideology that underpins this terrorism. We do that through a variety of community groups in the UK. As I indicated in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti), many imams in the UK and around the world—I have met some of them—are actively working to spread a different theological message. That is important work.