When Ed Balls left a Labour fundraiser at a Westminster curry house last Wednesday to be interviewed on Newsnight, he had the look of a man with an ace up his sleeve. David Cameron’s attack on the government for allowing public funds to go to schools influenced by Islamist extremists was blunted by some slapdash research. Although understandable given their profusion, muddling up ‘pathfinder’ funds was stupid. Far more foolish was the response of ministers, who leapt on the muddle as proof that the central charge was also flawed. As a former special adviser, I understand the need for survival tactics in what Denis Healey called the ‘jungle warfare’ of Cabinet-level politics. Sometimes the best you can hope for is to go to bed in one piece.
But the fundamental charges — that schools in Tottenham and Slough were influenced by Islamism, that their leading lights had links to the ultra-extremist Hizb ut Tahrir, and that concepts such as the Caliphate and Ummah were being taught to young children — are too important to ignore. It is no good for ministers to hide behind Ofsted’s supposed clean bill of health. It is laughable to expect Ofsted to be able to spot the difference between legitimate Islamic influences in a faith school, and the clandestine hand of political Islam. It’s like asking a tax inspector to explain the differences between the Committee for a Workers’ International and the Committee for a Marxist International.
Even people active in politics don’t always recognise the difference between Islam and Islamism, its political groupings, set-texts, core concepts and methods. The government’s official guidebook for ministers outlaws use of the word Islamism, for fear of causing confusion and offence. How can you tackle something that doesn’t have a name?
Ministers should have announced suspension of all funds, and an immediate investigation. A team drawn from experts from the Quilliam Foundation, the counter-extremist think-tank, should have gone into the schools to seek out signs of tax-funded Islamist indoctrination. The charge that children in Berkshire and north London are today being exposed to the kinds of ideas current in training camps on Pakistan’s north-west frontier, and that government ministers are signing the cheques, is not one that Labour can safely ignore.
Paul Richards writes a weekly column for Progress magazine. He was a special adviser at the Communities Department.
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