Banning Wilders is bad for social cohesion

What to make of the state’s refusal to allow Geert Wilders into the UK yesterday?  The issues involved are so fundamental that my take on them is almost instinctive: of course he should have been allowed into the country, and the excuse that a private screening of his film Fitna in the Lords is a criminal threat to “public security” is craven in the extreme.  Philip Johnston strikes a similar note in his excellent Telegraph article today.  Here’s a key snippet:

“Wilders claims that these verses from the holy book of Islam are being used today to incite modern Muslims to behave violently and anti-democratically. You may think he is wrong to say this; you may agree with him; you might, like the lords who invited him to Britain, think it is something worthy of discussion, given the obvious problems caused around the world by radical Islamism and the violence perpetrated in the name of the religion.