Andrew Gilligan surveys the various attempts by civil servants to promote Islamist groups to government:
Over the past 10 days, like a submarine just below the surface, the outline has become visible of a massive Whitehall row, the outcome of which could be almost as important to our country as fixing the deficit.
…
Our new ministers appear to be moving towards a clear and obvious policy, of no official support for Islamism. But they face surprising resistance from the people supposed to carry out their wishes: the Civil Service.There are, in Whitehall, a number of senior officials and paid ministerial advisers who are sympathisers of Islamism….
He concludes
The pity of it is that there is a highly successful model for quarantining extremism, sealing it off from respectable society. No civil servant would dream of talking to the BNP, or protesting if one of its speakers was denied an entry visa, or treating it as a legitimate representative of white people. Nobody would even think of funding, say, BNP schools. At the recent elections, the racists were routed. Islamism is the Muslim equivalent of the BNP. Like them, it shouldn’t be banned, or persecuted – just utterly shunned.
Thank God our politicians seem to understand this. And if their officials don’t get it, they should just get out.
Read the lot.
