The enemy within
Islamist intimidation is taking us down a very dark path.
It is an unfortunate coincidence that my piece for last week ended up being even more relevant to current events than I had initially intended.
On February 1st, the same day that it was posted, the Conservative MP for Finchley and Golders Green, Mike Freer, announced that he would be stepping down and not seeking re-election after fourteen years serving as a Member of Parliament, citing fears for his safety after a series of threats made against him and his constituency staff.
It will come as no surprise to anyone who has read last week’s post, or any of my previous writings, that this news outraged me—yet sadly did not come as a shock. Mike Freer is (so far) the only MP to have openly cited Islamist violence and intimidation as the catalyst for his retreat from politics, but I strongly doubt that he will be alone.
Fear factor
In a letter announcing his intention to stand down from Parliament come the next election, Mike Freer highlighted several “serious threats” he has faced during his considerable time as an MP.
Freer said that he had been targeted by Muslims Against Crusades—a proscribed group with links to Islamist terrorists—with threats ”about coming to stab me” and had found mock Molotov cocktails on the steps of his constituency office. He claims that the group had been active against him since 2011 when they stated “Let Stephen Timms be a warning to you”; Timms, the Labour MP for East Ham, had been the victim of an attempted assassination by an Islamist the year before and, fortunately, survived the stabbing.
Freer had another run-in with supporters of the radical group, who marched into a Finchley mosque he was attending and accused him of being a “Jewish homosexual pig” who was “defiling the house of Allah”. Freer is an openly gay man—and neither Jewish nor a pig—which is certainly not a crime in this country, much to the lament of his Islamist opponents.
In the latest of a long line of incidents, the Finchley constituency office was the target of a suspected arson attack over the Christmas period. Two people have been charged, but their motives remain unknown pending an investigation.
Freer believes the attack could be related to his outspoken views on the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Representing a constituency with one of the largest Jewish populations in the country, Freer is a member of the Conservative Friends of Israel and has been a staunch defender of the Jewish nation’s response to the brutal attacks committed by Hamas on October 7th last year.
“But sadly I’ve had too many incidents in the past where I’ve been attacked because of my views on the Middle East, but also many of my constituents have had similar incidents, so it’s not an unknown incident in Golders Green. When something flares in the Middle East, the level of attacks in my local area does go up, so sadly it could be to do with my views on the Middle East.”
Freer has described himself as a “strong supporter of the two-state solution” and has publicly supported the Israeli government’s efforts to eradicate Hamas—positions that any sane person would deem acceptable, but to the radical Islamists are beyond the pale.
In an interview following his shock announcement, Freer stated that "I don't think we can divorce" antisemitism from the motives behind his intimidators, agreeing that his stance on Israel and opposition to rising antisemitism “has to be a factor” driving the campaign against him. In defending his constituents, many of whom have felt a significant rise in antisemitism following the events of October 7th, he has rightly pointed out the absurdity that Jewish schools and places of worship in London have required increased protection.
Rabbi Miriam Berger, from a Finchley synagogue, has said the news “confirmed everything the community has been feeling” over recent months, where “you’re in danger being even an ally to the Jewish community”. The reality of the situation is unprecedented; if such prominent allies to British Jews like Mike Freer are forced into stepping down from their positions of influence due to fears for their safety, who is going to be willing to stand up against the rampant public antisemitism we have witnessed on London’s streets for months now?
Will the next MP for Finchley and Golders Green dare represent their constituents' opinions and take an openly pro-Israel stance? Or will they cower in fear of the Islamist intimidation that has been so pervasive in Britain over recent years?
It’s no wonder the Jewish community is full of fear.
Death of democracy
Another harrowing revelation from Freer’s announcement is the story of his close encounter with Ali Harbi Ali, the radical Islamist terrorist who murdered the Conservative MP for Southend, Sir David Amess, in October 2021.
It was understood that for the previous two years Ali—who saw himself as a soldier belonging to Islamic State—had been plotting an assassination directed towards an MP, even conducting “reconnaissance” by standing outside the gates of Parliament for hours to observe potential targets.
Ali wanted revenge, on behalf of his terrorist brethren, against a politician who supported the UK’s military actions in Syria against ISIS. Ali admitted that in 2014 he had considered travelling to the Middle East to join up with fellow extremists and fight for the caliphate; instead, he decided to remain in the UK and carry out an attack here.
Ali stalked a handful of MPs, including Michael Gove who ended up cancelling his open-invite constituency meetings due to security concerns, and even visited Mike Freer’s constituency in Finchley, barely a month before he would travel to Southend and stab Amess to death in a church.
“He’d been to Finchley several times. He told [the police] that he’d come to Finchley on 21st September 2021—I remember the date vividly—armed with the intention to harm. And purely by a stroke of luck, the night before, Boris Johnson had moved me from the whips’ office to courts and equalities. Otherwise, I would have been in Finchley and probably attacked.”
With his plans frustrated, Ali finally settled on Amess, who was singled out because he made his constituency surgeries accessible to the public, advertising available dates and times online. Amess, committed to serving his constituents, was one of the first MPs to resume full face-to-face meetings post-lockdown.
His commitment to public service would be exploited by Ali, who was able to access the defenceless MP at his surgery in Leigh-on-Sea and stab him multiple times. Amess died from his wounds less than an hour later.
Ali, who was later sentenced to life in prison, claimed “I wanted to kill David and every MP who voted for bombings in Syria, I wanted to die, be shot and be a hero.”
Sir David Amess’ voting record had been the reason why he was ultimately attacked by Ali, combined, of course, with the ease of access provided by his open constituency surgeries.
It is not difficult to see the worrying parallels between David’s stance on Syria and Freer’s more recent stance on Israel, and understanding that there may indeed be a credible threat to Freer’s life as a consequence; it would not take much for a similarly radical individual to show up to the constituency office in Finchley and attack Freer and his staff—who have all taken to wearing stab vests to work.
The weaponisation of politicians’ voting records is a perilous road to head down, especially when they are so readily accessible online for anyone to look into. This is why I was deeply disturbed when last November, in the fallout of the ridiculous ceasefire amendment vote that took place in the House of Commons, the Green Party released a list of all MPs who had voted against the motion—maliciously framing them as members who had “failed to vote for an end to the killing in Gaza”.
This, to anyone with motivations similar to Ali Harbi Ali’s, was a hit list.
Thankfully, as of yet, no MPs have been harmed, but many—particularly from the Labour party—have faced targeted protests outside their constituency offices, accusing them of “complicity” with alleged war crimes and genocide being committed by Israel against Palestinians. This is blatant intimidation—while not as overt as the death threats sent to Mike Freer, the intention to influence MPs’ voting habits is clear.
Elected representatives should not have to fear violence and intimidation for simply carrying out their job and voting on legislation, especially on important foreign policy decisions. If MPs cannot vote as they intend to, for fear of a violent backlash, then we will only see the views of extremists represented within Parliament.
Appeasement to mob rule is the death knell of liberal democracy, and cannot be permitted to continue in the UK.
Nothing will change
Despite stern statements from Downing Street condemning the “attack on British democracy”, I fear nothing will be done to actually tackle the “vitriolic hatred” we are witnessing proliferate amongst British society. Mike Freer’s decision to step down is yet another victory for Islamist extremists against British liberal democracy, and the government is seemingly avoiding addressing the problem altogether.
The murder of Sir David Amess should have been a wake up call. A Member of Parliament murdered in his own constituency by an Islamist radical because of a voting decision—one he was certainly not alone in making. So how did his parliamentary colleagues respond to his brutal murder, one that could easily have been them on another day, or in other circumstances?
They gathered in Parliament to mourn his death, for which they bizarrely blamed the “toxicity” of social media and demanded a crackdown on abusive language online directed at MPs.
Instead of recognising the ideological motives that drove Amess’ murderer to commit his terrible act, they seized the opportunity to push their own agenda and enact a so-called “David’s Law” that would limit anonymity online. Sir David Amess was not killed by an abusive Tweet, and social media had no part to play in Ali’s plotting of the murder. This was simply a sickening hijacking of a tragedy to reinforce draconian legislation, driven by Amess’ alleged friends in Parliament such as Mark Francois:
“I suggest that if we want to ensure that our colleague didn’t die in vain, we collectively all of us pick up the baton, regardless of our party and take the forthcoming online harms bill and toughen it up markedly. Let’s put, if I may be so presumptuous, David’s law on to the statute book, the essence of which would be that while people in public life must remain open to legitimate criticism, they can no longer be vilified or their families subject to the most horrendous abuse, especially from people who hide behind a cloak of anonymity with the connivance of the social media companies for profit.”
This is insulting enough in itself, but what is even stranger is that, following his recent announcement, Mike Freer himself has also called for social media platforms to take further action to prevent harmful abuse against MPs. He has said that "Email and social media have a lot to answer for, because they can be kind of anonymous, certainly social media. Social media companies do very little to stop it.”
Labour’s candidate in Finchley and Golders Green, who would have competed with Freer in this year’s election, also piled on by adding: "We should have been able to face each other in the polls based on our ideas and merits. Instead, politics is now so often skewed by violent language, hate and the dangers of social media."
Once again, it was not offensive content on social media that set fire to Freer’s office in Finchley, nor an email that turned up with a knife with the intention of murdering him at his workplace. Why must we avoid the elephant in the room and refuse to confront the growing threat to our democracy presented by radical Islamism?
Cracking down on harmful Tweets will not address the issue of a totalitarian form of politics that aims to undermine, and ultimately supersede, Britain’s liberal democracy. If a government minister feels that the state cannot sufficiently protect him, and is thus intimidated to step down from his position, what hope do any of the rest of us have?
The government, and the wider political class in Westminster, refuse to grasp the true nature and scale of the threat that radical Islamism poses, especially to them. Even with their own friends and colleagues on the frontlines, they bury their heads in the sand and bleat on about “online safety”. The current political establishment is wholly unfit to tackle this existential challenge to British democracy and values, and, if this trajectory continues, will be the first to succumb to its brutal violence.
There is nothing to be gained by changing the subject. Blaming social media or the far-right—which is a legitimate problem, but does not match the scale of Islamist extremism in the UK, which is often downplayed—is merely kicking the can down the road. We must be steadfast in defending our liberal democratic principles; we have already seen the terrifying consequences of Islamist intimidation against our schools, we must not see it replicated elsewhere.
In the words of Rakib Ehsan:
“Part of being a mature British citizen is accepting a plurality of views on domestic and geopolitical matters which are admittedly highly sensitive. That is at the heart of the social contract that comes with living in an advanced liberal democracy, one where I—as a member of a racial, ethnic, and religious minority—enjoy considerable rights, freedoms, and protections. But they are to be valued and appreciated – not exploited in an intimidatory fashion in the name of religio-political tribalism.”
No one can blame Mike Freer for choosing to walk away from politics. He has been abandoned by his friends and colleagues in Westminster, who are too afraid to confront the forces that will only continue to grow in the darkness, rather than shine a light on its ugly face.
I will leave you with a passage, written by the late Sir David Amess MP, addressing the threat to the British tradition of politicians meeting with their constituents following the murder of Jo Cox in 2016. We must honour his and Jo’s memory by ensuring politicians can still feel safe enough to choose to represent us and our views.
Without that, we do not have a democracy.
