UK General Election 2017

[Montmorency]

These are contemporary British ideals. The UK left the EU because the Brexiteers feared the admission of Turkey would allow Muslims a free road into this country, among other things. Certainly immigration and Muslims are the top reason(s).

So the next step is to bar all Muslims? That would be a return to 19th-century ideals.

Pannonian, why is criticism so important to you? Any policy can be criticized by anyone - that doesn't leave you to crawl into a cave and hope all the meanies leave you alone, does it? You take criticism into account where possible and adopt reasonable courses of action, knowing you can't and shouldn't please everyone. "Damned if you do and damned if you don't" is your favorite premise, yet it is wholly untrue and seems borne out of petulant parochialism. Criticism exists. Get over it.

Do the right thing or you aren't fit to even stand to hear criticism.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

So the next step is to bar all Muslims? That would be a return to 19th-century ideals.

Pannonian, why is criticism so important to you? Any policy can be criticized by anyone - that doesn't leave you to crawl into a cave and hope all the meanies leave you alone, does it? You take criticism into account where possible and adopt reasonable courses of action, knowing you can't and shouldn't please everyone. "Damned if you do and damned if you don't" is your favorite premise, yet it is wholly untrue and seems borne out of petulant parochialism. Criticism exists. Get over it.

Do the right thing or you aren't fit to even stand to hear criticism.

Pannonian's point is that if we intervene we're evil Imperialists, (Libya) and if we don't intervene we don't care (Syria) and its often the SAME PEOPLE making both arguments.

It is, therefore not possible to "take criticism into account where possible and adopt reasonable courses of action."

There is a well documented trend of second generation immigrants being more extreme and less integrated into British culture than their parents. This manifests not only in Terrorism but in tacit support for Suicide bombing, rejection of liberal Western ideals (such as women not having to cover up) and generally being bad citizens.

The fact is, in the UK only Muslims commit suicide bombings and irrc all the bombers have been born here.

So, if we let in no more Muslim immigrants or refugees they will not go on to have children who become suicide bombers and murder other people's children.

It's not a very compassionate response but it is a completely logical one.

[Pannonian]

Pannonian's point is that if we intervene we're evil Imperialists, (Libya) and if we don't intervene we don't care (Syria) and its often the SAME PEOPLE making both arguments.

It is, therefore not possible to "take criticism into account where possible and adopt reasonable courses of action."

There is a well documented trend of second generation immigrants being more extreme and less integrated into British culture than their parents. This manifests not only in Terrorism but in tacit support for Suicide bombing, rejection of liberal Western ideals (such as women not having to cover up) and generally being bad citizens.

The fact is, in the UK only Muslims commit suicide bombings and irrc all the bombers have been born here.

So, if we let in no more Muslim immigrants or refugees they will not go on to have children who become suicide bombers and murder other people's children.

It's not a very compassionate response but it is a completely logical one.

We did all we could for Abedi's family, and he, a born and raised Briton, went and did what he did. And according to his (unapologetic) sister, it was the sight of victims of US bombings that made him decide to attack us. And after all that, you still have people blaming us for bringing these attacks on.

There is nothing we can do to appease these nutters and their apologists.

[Montmorency]

It is, therefore not possible to "take criticism into account where possible and adopt reasonable courses of action."

Why isn't it? Does a policy have no other motivation behind it than to meet the standards of a particular group of critics? Criticism is no excuse for self-indulgent ambivalence. Do you cut all funding for the NHS because administering it is difficult? Do you drop the nuclear deterrent because its expensive and some people don't like it?

Also extend these critics the possibility of disagreement in good will. Not everyone who has specific criticisms of British foreign policy is willing to attack British institutions or people over it.

So, if we let in no more Muslim immigrants or refugees they will not go on to have children who become suicide bombers and murder other people's children.

And if you stop all births we will not have to worry about crimes or bad citizens again. Perfectly logical - but has little relevance to governance.

[Montmorency]

There is nothing we can do to appease these nutters and their apologists.

So instead of worrying about "nutters and apologists", why not try developing good policy?

[Pannonian]

So instead of worrying about "nutters and apologists", why not try developing good policy?

There is no good policy. We took in Abedi's parents as refugees from Qaddafi's Libya. They had this and other sprogs here. Said sprogs grew up here, aided by the state. We removed Qaddafi, as would have been Abedi sr's wish, and half the Abedi family returned to a liberated Libya. And this arsehole stayed behind to do what he did, after watching what the US did.

The only good policy would have been not taking in the older Abedis in the first place. Everything after that was as compassionate and progressive as any liberal democratic state can get. And we know the end result.

[Montmorency]

Everything after that was as compassionate and progressive as any liberal democratic state can get.

You keep saying this - do you just assume that? Is it something osmotic, perhaps?

Regardless, however, would you consider - in the 20th century - barring entry to all East-European refugees when the child of one commits a terror attack?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

So instead of worrying about "nutters and apologists", why not try developing good policy?

Like what?

Maybe restrict preaching and access to Saudi Korans?

Oh sure, that'll go down well "Look, the Crusaders are trying to tell us our own religion."

For the UK Islamic Terrorism is an imported problem, terrorists are either second generation Muslim immigrants or first-generation converts.

What a lot of people seem to forget, too, if that current policy stems from the paradigm-shift that was 9/11 - an essentially unprovoked attack on the anniversary of the Battle of Vienna.

[Montmorency]

Like what?

Maybe restrict preaching and access to Saudi Korans?

Oh sure, that'll go down well "Look, the Crusaders are trying to tell us our own religion."

For the UK Islamic Terrorism is an imported problem, terrorists are either second generation Muslim immigrants or first-generation converts.

What a lot of people seem to forget, too, if that current policy stems from the paradigm-shift that was 9/11 - an essentially unprovoked attack on the anniversary of the Battle of Vienna.

Islamic terrorism is a problem that the world must manage and weather. You'll see it whether you repress your Muslims or respect them.

[Pannonian]

You keep saying this - do you just assume that? Is it something osmotic, perhaps?

Regardless, however, would you consider - in the 20th century - barring entry to all East-European refugees when the child of one commits a terror attack?

I've repeated it several times, so have you not read it, or have you dismissed it? Note what his sister said his motives were.

You've kept hammering the argument that we're somehow to blame. Could you suggest what we could have done instead that might have made him not attack us?

[Montmorency]

I've repeated it several times, so have you not read it, or have you dismissed it? Note what his sister said his motives were.

Beyond merely existing in Britain.

You've kept hammering the argument that we're somehow to blame. Could you suggest what we could have done instead that might have made him not attack us?

I haven't discussed blame. I specifically told you at the outset that I'm not discussing blame. You have this great difficulty changing the record from whatever track you are on. I'm trying to explain why the way you are thinking is an unproductive approach and describing what else there is to think, but you keep snapping back to your original line and reading everything relative to that perspective.

And I haven't been discussing ways to convince specific people not to subscribe to jihadi ideologies, because that's a futile exercise. You work with the population as a whole, first to do the actual appropriate governance that people living in a state need generally, second those specific programs aimed to improve security and encourage integration. If you simply have a visceral hatred of Muslims or are willing to apply collective punishment for even a single transgression, then our values are just too different and all I can hope for is to stand in your way.

[Pannonian]

Beyond merely existing in Britain.

I haven't discussed blame. I specifically told you at the outset that I'm not discussing blame. You have this great difficulty changing the record from whatever track you are on. I'm trying to explain why the way you are thinking is an unproductive approach and describing what else there is to think, but you keep snapping back to your original line and reading everything relative to that perspective.

And I haven't been discussing ways to convince specific people not to subscribe to jihadi ideologies, because that's a futile exercise. You work with the population as a whole, first to do the actual appropriate governance that people living in a state need generally, second those specific programs aimed to improve security and encourage integration. If you simply have a visceral hatred of Muslims or are willing to apply collective punishment for even a single transgression, then our values are just too different and all I can hope for is to stand in your way.

Haras Rafiq On Manchester Attack - Enough Is Enough

Haras Rafiq is chief executive of Quilliam.

Quilliam is a London-based left-of-center[1] think tank that focuses on counter-extremism, specifically against Islamism, which it argues represents a desire to impose a given interpretation of Islam on society. Founded as The Quilliam Foundation, it lobbies government and public institutions for more nuanced policies regarding Islam and on the need for greater democracy in the Muslim world whilst empowering moderate Muslim voices.
According to one of its co-founders, Maajid Nawaz, "We wish to raise awareness around Islamism";[2] he also said, "I want to demonstrate how the Islamist ideology is incompatible with Islam. Secondly … develop a Western Islam that is at home in Britain and in Europe … reverse radicalisation by taking on their arguments and countering them."[3]
The organisation opposes any Islamist ideology and champions freedom of expression. The critique of Islamist ideology by its founders, Maajid Nawaz, Rashad Zaman Ali and Ed Husain, is based, in part, on their personal experiences.[4]

Quilliam defines Islamism in the following terms:
It is the belief that Islam is a political ideology, as well as a faith. It is a modernist claim that political sovereignty belongs to God, that the Shari'ah should be used as state law, that Muslims form a political rather than a religious bloc around the world and that it is a religious duty for all Muslims to create a political entity that is governed as such. Islamism is a spectrum, with Islamists disagreeing over how they should bring their ‘Islamic’ state into existence.
Some Islamists seek to engage with existing political systems, others reject the existing systems as illegitimate but do so non-violently, and others seek to create an 'Islamic state' through violence. Most Islamists are socially modern but others advocate a more retrograde lifestyle. Islamists often have contempt for Muslim scholars and sages and their traditional institutions; as well as a disdain for non-Islamist Muslims and the West.[10]
Quilliam argues that Islam is just a religion, not a political religion or an ideology,[11] and that "Islam is not Islamism".[12] It also argues that "[Islamists] are extreme because of their rigidity in understanding politics".[13]

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

We've been doing the integration thing for decades, help to learn English, interpreters until you do, passing laws and monitoring to make sure people aren't being discriminated against, educating non-Muslims about Islam in schools.

This guy, and his siblings, had all that given to them, literally given, by the state and he still goes and kills children and his sister defends him because of something happening in another country we aren't at war with.

This isn't like fighting the IRA where it was a cross-generational thing and there was an older generation to talk to, and there were real legitimate grievances, and possible negotiation on a solution.

The Muslims who carry out these attacks are fighting a war of annihilation. You think it's just happenstance he chose an Ariana Grande concert? I don't. I think, in his mind, she was a symbol of everything he hated about the land of his birth.

I don't like the idea of stopping Muslim immigration, I doubt Pannonian likes it either but you need to present another alternative we haven't tried - instead of just smug criticism.

[Pannonian]

We've been doing the integration thing for decades, help to learn English, interpreters until you do, passing laws and monitoring to make sure people aren't being discriminated against, educating non-Muslims about Islam in schools.

This guy, and his siblings, had all that given to them, literally given, by the state and he still goes and kills children and his sister defends him because of something happening in another country we aren't at war with.

This isn't like fighting the IRA where it was a cross-generational thing and there was an older generation to talk to, and there were real legitimate grievances, and possible negotiation on a solution.

The Muslims who carry out these attacks are fighting a war of annihilation. You think it's just happenstance he chose an Ariana Grande concert? I don't. I think, in his mind, she was a symbol of everything he hated about the land of his birth.

I don't like the idea of stopping Muslim immigration, I doubt Pannonian likes it either but you need to present another alternative we haven't tried - instead of just smug criticism.

I was educated in an integrated system, comprehensives and all, meeting people from many cultures. The Muslims I met, and I knew enough to be familiar with Pakistani surnames, were little different from anyone else. I knew at least one who had a stonking huge union flag in his room, which I thought was rather tacky. I had no problems with Muslims from that generation or earlier. Why are we expected to give younger Muslims special treatment for fear of violent retaliation, when those I knew got on well enough without?

[Montmorency]

We've been doing the integration thing for decades, help to learn English, interpreters until you do, passing laws and monitoring to make sure people aren't being discriminated against, educating non-Muslims about Islam in schools.

This guy, and his siblings, had all that given to them, literally given, by the state and he still goes and kills children and his sister defends him because of something happening in another country we aren't at war with.

This isn't like fighting the IRA where it was a cross-generational thing and there was an older generation to talk to, and there were real legitimate grievances, and possible negotiation on a solution.

The Muslims who carry out these attacks are fighting a war of annihilation. You think it's just happenstance he chose an Ariana Grande concert? I don't. I think, in his mind, she was a symbol of everything he hated about the land of his birth.

I don't like the idea of stopping Muslim immigration, I doubt Pannonian likes it either but you need to present another alternative we haven't tried - instead of just smug criticism.

Just as a separate matter - let's be clear Pannonian, I'm not claiming that this either drove Abedi to or justified him in carrying out the attack - you seem very sure of what services or treatment this or other families did or did not receive, or that whatever they did receive was exactly what was needed. Maybe integration policy in fact has been perfunctory and inconsistent?

Don't compare to the IRA, but to the Communists. The comparison rests not on the use of terrorism, but on the desire to implement a totally different social structure and form of government, incompatible with the existing system. The only way for it to be beaten is for the idea and its accessories to lose currency around the world. This can't be accomplished in or by any one country. A country may, however, have better or worse ways of managing the problem. I am perfectly comfortable in criticizing the impulse to drop the ball and sit on the ground as a petty response to a difficult situation.

Haras Rafiq On Manchester Attack - Enough Is Enough

Haras Rafiq is chief executive of Quilliam.

I don't know what in particular you want to raise from the video, or if it is meant as part of a supplementary discussion, and I find little of the video disagreeable, so I'll just make some remarks:

The attack is the "new normal" in the absolute sense that terror attacks in Europe and elsewhere are and have been normal for some time, but in the sense that certain values or expectations should be discouraged from normalizing, I agree.

As far as existince of an enabling culture toward radicalization in Muslim communities, I agree, and grievances and unmet needs should be aired and addressed without creating a ready logical transition toward rejection of and violence against the society and political process.

I agree that terrorist organizations do not actively "radicalize" so much as offer a venue for practical pursuit of radical idea. On the other hand, their existence and popularity in itself does contribute as a radicalizing factor.

Lone wolves never exist in a vacuum, but the term itself refers to someone who operates without partners or aid - it's understood as an operational descriptive. Reading a book on bomb-making, or an article about terror attacks, isn't the same as being coached through the process by a card-carrying jihadi, or even working together with local acquaintances.

With respect to homophobia, racism, and fascism, governments have tended to find it difficult to leada societal shift against them. Legislation to guarantee protections and the like helps, but agencies and outreach programs can only supplement an organic societal shift, or shape its direction, not produce it. So it's important to keep in mind the limits of what the state can accomplish through "educating people" directly. For Islam, indirect efforts and supporting community efforts themselves is more likely to be successful than central executive departments, I have to admit. On the other hand, trying to promulgate specific arguments, whether top-down or bottom-up, will suffer from lack of exposure and inadequate context, making it far from a panacea.

Following from this, Rafiq's endorsement of a values-based dialectical approach - seemingly descended from aspects of 18th-century popular pamphleteering - will find it difficult to make headway on a large scale because there are not many people, Muslim or non-Muslim, who can implement it on the specified terms. The increasing fragmentation and rightism of non-Muslim society makes it more difficult to address the fragmentation and right-ward turn of Muslim demographics.

[Pannonian]

Just as a separate matter - let's be clear Pannonian, I'm not claiming that this either drove Abedi to or justified him in carrying out the attack - you seem very sure of what services or treatment this or other families did or did not receive, or that whatever they did receive was exactly what was needed. Maybe integration policy in fact has been perfunctory and inconsistent?

Don't compare to the IRA, but to the Communists. The comparison rests not on the use of terrorism, but on the desire to implement a totally different social structure and form of government, incompatible with the existing system. The only way for it to be beaten is for the idea and its accessories to lose currency around the world. This can't be accomplished in or by any one country. A country may, however, have better or worse ways of managing the problem. I am perfectly comfortable in criticizing the impulse to drop the ball and sit on the ground as a petty response to a difficult situation.



I don't know what in particular you want to raise from the video, or if it is meant as part of a supplementary discussion, and I find little of the video disagreeable, so I'll just make some remarks:

The attack is the "new normal" in the absolute sense that terror attacks in Europe and elsewhere are and have been normal for some time, but in the sense that certain values or expectations should be discouraged from normalizing, I agree.

As far as existince of an enabling culture toward radicalization in Muslim communities, I agree, and grievances and unmet needs should be aired and addressed without creating a ready logical transition toward rejection of and violence against the society and political process.

I agree that terrorist organizations do not actively "radicalize" so much as offer a venue for practical pursuit of radical idea. On the other hand, their existence and popularity in itself does contribute as a radicalizing factor.

Lone wolves never exist in a vacuum, but the term itself refers to someone who operates without partners or aid - it's understood as an operational descriptive. Reading a book on bomb-making, or an article about terror attacks, isn't the same as being coached through the process by a card-carrying jihadi, or even working together with local acquaintances.

With respect to homophobia, racism, and fascism, governments have tended to find it difficult to leada societal shift against them. Legislation to guarantee protections and the like helps, but agencies and outreach programs can only supplement an organic societal shift, or shape its direction, not produce it. So it's important to keep in mind the limits of what the state can accomplish through "educating people" directly. For Islam, indirect efforts and supporting community efforts themselves is more likely to be successful than central executive departments, I have to admit. On the other hand, trying to promulgate specific arguments, whether top-down or bottom-up, will suffer from lack of exposure and inadequate context, making it far from a panacea.

Following from this, Rafiq's endorsement of a values-based dialectical approach - seemingly descended from aspects of 18th-century popular pamphleteering - will find it difficult to make headway on a large scale because there are not many people, Muslim or non-Muslim, who can implement it on the specified terms. The increasing fragmentation and rightism of non-Muslim society makes it more difficult to address the fragmentation and right-ward turn of Muslim demographics.

The point he's making, and he uses Andy Burnham as an example, is that people should stop pretending that this is about anything other than Muslims practicing a form of Islam. And you go on and illustrate his point. No amount of long words and multiple paragraphs will disprove his point.

[Montmorency]

And you go on and illustrate his point. No amount of long words and multiple paragraphs will disprove his point.

Maybe because I agree with that point?

[Pannonian]

Just as a separate matter - let's be clear Pannonian, I'm not claiming that this either drove Abedi to or justified him in carrying out the attack - you seem very sure of what services or treatment this or other families did or did not receive, or that whatever they did receive was exactly what was needed. Maybe integration policy in fact has been perfunctory and inconsistent?

I've just noticed this. Of course the integration policy would have been comprehensive. He was born here. Being a British kid, he would have automatically had access to state support, from birth until he left school at 18. Since he went to university, that support would have extended beyond that age, and for as long as he was at university. Depending on when he left, it's possible that he could have been raised by the state from birth until he decided to kill those children.

[Montmorency]

He was born here

And? I'm not talking about the things that are generally available, but immigrant-specific or Muslim-specific items, which you only mentioned in the most abstract terms. Do you have a source on this particular family's history, the town or area in which they've lived, or are you making assumptions on your knowledge of things that are in principle possible or available.

[Pannonian]

And? I'm not talking about the things that are generally available, but immigrant-specific or Muslim-specific items, which you only mentioned in the most abstract terms. Do you have a source on this particular family's history, the town or area in which they've lived, or are you making assumptions on your knowledge of things that are in principle possible or available.

Bloody hell. I grew up with lots of Muslims. During cricket series, Pakistan fans would often outnumber England fans. Their culture was their own business, and none of the state's. What the state does, at least for kids, is ensure their welfare from birth until adulthood. Muslim kids are no different from other kids. They have a roof over their heads, they're fed, and they're educated. The environment they grow up in is British. Their culture is a mixture of home culture and outside culture. What kind of integration are you expecting? For that matter, what experience do you have of growing up among sizeable numbers of Muslims?

[Montmorency]

Muslim kids are no different from other kids. They have a roof over their heads, they're fed, and they're educated. The environment they grow up in is British.

Please, you're again addressing something different than what I am. What I'm interested in with the very specific point of the last few posts is the actual experience of (Muslim) immigrants with the government and other groups, their services, and their offices as a matter of day-to-day life, not just law, policy objectives, or hopes and dreams.

For that matter, what experience do you have of growing up among sizeable numbers of Muslims?

As I've mentioned in the past, I'm a New Yorker.

A brief example to help orient you toward what I've been asking would be the NYANA (New York Association for New Americans) organization. This was a non-governmental organization that throughout the second half of the 20th century provided interpreting, English-instruction, vocational training, clinical, and other services to refugees and immigrants arriving in New York, particularly Soviet Jews. This does not mean that all services were evenly distributed and accessed by all to an equal extent. NYANA helped some people a lot, while others got very little out of it, as is natural with organizations in real life.

So the question is one of what is available, what is accessible, what are the actual experiences of those targeted, and how do these vary by time, place, national origin, and other factors. This is in contrast to your very broad assumption of what must apply to all residents simply by dint of their existence in the UK, as though this stuff works through osmosis.

[Pannonian]

Please, you're again addressing something different than what I am. What I'm interested in with the very specific point of the last few posts is the actual experience of (Muslim) immigrants with the government and other groups, their services, and their offices as a matter of day-to-day life, not just law, policy objectives, or hopes and dreams.



As I've mentioned in the past, I'm a New Yorker.

A brief example to help orient you toward what I've been asking would be the NYANA (New York Association for New Americans) organization. This was a non-governmental organization that throughout the second half of the 20th century provided interpreting, English-instruction, vocational training, clinical, and other services to refugees and immigrants arriving in New York, particularly Soviet Jews. This does not mean that all services were evenly distributed and accessed by all to an equal extent. NYANA helped some people a lot, while others got very little out of it, as is natural with organizations in real life.

So the question is one of what is available, what is accessible, what are the actual experiences of those targeted, and how do these vary by time, place, national origin, and other factors. This is in contrast to your very broad assumption of what must apply to all residents simply by dint of their existence in the UK, as though this stuff works through osmosis.

Why would these be relevant when they're born here, and when they enter the school system at the latest, they'll be exposed to the full spectrum of the British multicultural experience within the British school system? Kids are kids. They will mix within schools. The resulting culture isn't Muslim, Jewish, or whatever, but an amalgam of whatever they see at home mixed with what their friends are interested in. The state doesn't regulate that mixture. The state ensures children grow up healthy and are given a reasonable chance in life.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

In the UK people get all that from the government, as a matter of course.

Note how the head of Quilliam has nothing to say about lack of efforts to integration. What he's saying is that Muslims don't challenge bigotry in their own communities.

[Montmorency]

Why would these be relevant when they're born here, and when they enter the school system at the latest, they'll be exposed to the full spectrum of the British multicultural experience within the British school system? Kids are kids. They will mix within schools. The resulting culture isn't Muslim, Jewish, or whatever, but an amalgam of whatever they see at home mixed with what their friends are interested in. The state doesn't regulate that mixture. The state ensures children grow up healthy and are given a reasonable chance in life.

Do white British children all have an identical experience growing up? Are all happy families alike?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017...loan-benefits/

So, apparently he used his student loan to fund trips to Libya.

You know, the Libya without Gaddaffi?

[Sarmatian]

Kids are kids. They will mix within schools.

No. Muslim kids will suffer discrimination and bullying because they are Muslims. And every time anti-Muslim hysteria rises, they're gonna suffer more of it.

Then they will come home, turn on the tv and there will be panel of experts discussing how Muslim are dangerous, how they can never be integrated, how they need to be force converted, expelled, imprisoned, tortured etc... They will then move on to internet and find even more abuse, comparing them with rats and hyenas, explaining how they are subhumans, barbaric, encounter suggestions that Muslims should be cleansed from one or more places, hashtags #killallmuslims and so on.

Not that easy to accept your new nation as a home.

Fun facts:
1) 60% of Muslim in the UK witnessed or experienced discrimination against Muslims in 2015
2) 63% experienced subtle discrimination, where they were talked down to, called stupid or had their opinions minimised or devalued.
3) More than 50% said they've been overlooked, ignored or denied service in restaurants, transports and public offices.
4) 75% said they've experienced strangers staring at them.

None of this really excuses mass murder, of course, but let's stop pretending everything is fine and dandy.

[Pannonian]

No. Muslim kids will suffer discrimination and bullying because they are Muslims. And every time anti-Muslim hysteria rises, they're gonna suffer more of it.

Then they will come home, turn on the tv and there will be panel of experts discussing how Muslim are dangerous, how they can never be integrated, how they need to be force converted, expelled, imprisoned, tortured etc... They will then move on to internet and find even more abuse, comparing them with rats and hyenas, explaining how they are subhumans, barbaric, encounter suggestions that Muslims should be cleansed from one or more places, hashtags #killallmuslims and so on.

Not that easy to accept your new nation as a home.

Fun facts:
1) 60% of Muslim in the UK witnessed or experienced discrimination against Muslims in 2015
2) 63% experienced subtle discrimination, where they were talked down to, called stupid or had their opinions minimised or devalued.
3) More than 50% said they've been overlooked, ignored or denied service in restaurants, transports and public offices.
4) 75% said they've experienced strangers staring at them.

None of this really excuses mass murder, of course, but let's stop pretending everything is fine and dandy.

Er, no. In schools, Muslim kids suffer bullying, not because they're Muslims, but because they're kids. That's what kids do. They fix on anything remotely different, and tease or bully based on that. It's part of the process of growing up, learning to interact with others.

And as for "Not that easy to accept your new nation as a home."; he was born here. The moment his mother spat him out, this was his nation. Unless you're suggesting that the country he was born in and which raised him is not his nation, but is overridden by some other nation.

[Furunculus]

If an indefinitely replenishing number of British Muslims are going to hate us and attack us, and no-one's going to take them for us, then at least we can stop adding to their number from abroad. Other ongoing solutions can go on top of that.

I've always felt it to be a shame that we go to such lengths to prevent british [adults] from going to join their brethren in forging the new 'caliphate'.

there's lots a reaper drones and chaps with impressive moustache's doing sterling work in this regard. why inhibit the culling of the herd?

i don't really want to live among such people and count them as my countrymen. i'm all for the principle of rehabilitation, but...

[Furunculus]

Why isn't it? Does a policy have no other motivation behind it than to meet the standards of a particular group of critics? Criticism is no excuse for self-indulgent ambivalence. Do you cut all funding for the NHS because administering it is difficult? Do you drop the nuclear deterrent because its expensive and some people don't like it?

A good point worth making:
66% of people recently said that british FP is in some part responsible for terrorist atrocities such as manchester.
but, about the same proportion tell chatham house each year that they support britain as a great power.

How do we marry these two apparent contradictions?

Easy, their may well be a link between our FP and terrorism, but it is a price worth paying for the role people wish their country to play.

[Pannonian]

A good point worth making:
66% of people recently said that british FP is in some part responsible for terrorist atrocities such as manchester.
but, about the same proportion tell chatham house each year that they support britain as a great power.

How do we marry these two apparent contradictions?

Easy, their may well be a link between our FP and terrorism, but it is a price worth paying for the role people wish their country to play.

In this particular case, according to Abedi's sister, it was US foreign policy that made her brother want to attack Britain. What the hell are we supposed to do about that?