The terrorist attack on a Manchester synagogue – on the morning of Yom Kippur – can be described as a lot of things. Horrific, shocking, vile, but it was a not a surprise. Britain has been heading in this direction for many years.
Jews in Manchester already knew they were potential targets
While the 7/10 attacks, the worst slaughter of Jews since the Second World War, brought antisemitic terrorism into global focus, Jews in Manchester already knew they were potential targets. In 2012 a husband and wife from Oldham were jailed for an Al-Qaeda inspired plot to bomb Jewish buildings in Greater Manchester. In May 2024, three men appeared in court charged with an alleged Islamic State inspired plot to murder Jews, the police and the military in the area with automatic firearms. Proceedings in that case are to follow. To such a backdrop, it can be no surprise that the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue had alert and capable security staff in place as the terror unfolded.
After terrorist outrages, there is a script. We have had Qari Asim of the British Muslim Network declare: ‘We cannot ignore the growing tide of religious hatred in our country. Whether it is Islamophobia, antisemitism or any form of bigotry, we must confront it together.’ Note the ordering of bigotry there. There is often a call for legislative change, riding on a wave of ‘something must be done’ sentiments. Recall protracted debates after 9/11 and 7/7, and the belief that as terrorists refine and redevelop their tactics, so the law must change to keep pace. After the murders of Jo Cox MP, by a neo-Nazi, and Sir David Amess MP, by a jihadist, it was arguments around the political temperature, and social media, which flared.
Today, the problem is emphatically not about whether existing laws and policies are fit for purpose. The problem is that the British state is so reluctant to use them. A few easy examples should suffice. Those calling for jihad at a Hizb-ut-Tahrir protest in London in October 2023, could and should have been prosecuted. They were not, although the British state did decide to proscribe Hizb-ut-Tahrir under counter terrorism legislation in January 2024. This is a well-worn path, but one leading not to robust action, but timidity. In 2021, the government proscribed Hamas in its entirety. In 2019, it did the same to Hezbollah, having previously only banned Hamas and Hezbollah’s ‘military’ wings.
Armed with the full weight of counter-terrorism legislation, have the authorities launched a robust crackdown on anyone still involved in these groups, or associated with them? Or anyone speaking in support of Hamas? The answer, bar the odd case moving at snail’s pace through the courts, is no, even though such videos circulate on social media with ease – some posted in hit-pieces by counter-extremism activists who often appear to have a better handle on rabble rousers, including contentious preachers, than the authorities.
This July, a charity linked to a Cardiff mosque was found to have shared a video showing a ‘positive image’ of Hamas – an issue dealt with via a warning from the Charity Commission. The contrast with the police’s desire to pursue non-hate crime incidents, which are not even crimes, and the gusto with which many police forces and the Crown Prosecution Service responded to online incitement post-Southport, is distinct. The next time an activist group produces a banner stating ‘Globalise the Intifada’ the first response ought to be to think of the synagogue in Crumpsall, and what ‘Globalise the Intifada’ actually means in practice?
There was a period where a different route was signposted. Back in February 2023, William Shawcross completed an independent review of the counter-terrorism Prevent strategy, which is designed to stop people from becoming terrorists. Opposing Prevent, a scheme decried as ‘Islamophobic’ by its critics, has become a die in a ditch issue for many British Muslim representatives, academics and swathes of the left. Shawcross found that Prevent had drifted from its core purpose, taking on a lot of mental health related work, and that it needed a reset in order to re-discover its core purpose of deterring people from terrorism. Fewer and fewer people from Islamist backgrounds were being referred, while Shawcross was concerned not enough work was being done to counter anti-Semitism.
Delivered in the dog days of a dying Conservative administration and going against the grain of the views of much of our intelligentsia, the Prevent review did not enjoy the reception it should have done from the police or security services. Shawcross was given some praise for his work, a knighthood, and broadly ignored, even though the then Labour Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper stated to Parliament in December 2024 that concerns over referrals for Islamist extremism (one of his core points!) had still not been addressed.
In the coming weeks, we will learn much more about Jihad al-Shamie and the attack in Manchester. The 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, committed by two brothers brought up in a family of anti-Gaddafi Libyan exiles taught us that engaging with Islamist exile politics is playing with fire. Have we made the same mistake with regards to Syria? But there are some things which can be said now: that we knew it was coming, and that the authorities do not need new laws or powers to deal with this threat. They have to re-discover their confidence, and make better use of the tools they already have.
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