11 ways to shut down Islamism
After another horrifying attack in the UK, a top expert weighs in
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Yesterday’s horrific car-ramming and knife attack in Manchester was the latest in a steady flow of Islamist-related terror attacks in the United Kingdom.
Make no mistake —radical, violent Islamism presents the greatest single threat. It is responsible for the vast majority of terror deaths and roughly 75% of MI5’s caseload.
Which is why, today, exclusively for this newsletter, I wanted to ask a top expert the question our country, and indeed the West, now urgently needs to answer.
How can we stop radical Islamism?
Dr Damon L. Perry is the author of The Global Muslim Brotherhood in Britain: Non-Violent Extremism and the Battle of Ideas (Routledge, 2019) and Associate Senior Fellow at the Counter Extremism Group. A former Senior Research Fellow at Policy Exchange, he has written multiple reports on Islamism in Britain.
In this piece, after setting out the challenge, Damon Perry puts forward 11 specific things the next UK government, perhaps a Reform-led government, should do.
Again, I wanted to keep the response focused not on bland and meaningless statements like “let’s bring people together”, or “don’t look back in anger”, but specific things we can do that would make a serious, impactful, and noticeable difference.
And, obviously, I view the recommendations below as existing alongside the urgent need to end the policy of mass uncontrolled immigration, do whatever is necessary to fix our broken borders, and actually develop a serious integration strategy.
I am sure you will find it interesting —this is the start of a serious response to people who want to completely takeover our country.
Yesterday’s events have once again underlined the threat posed by violent Islamism.
These terror attacks are driven by the belief Israel is carrying out a ‘genocide’ of Palestinians—a narrative that’s encouraged by mainstream media and activist academics—or that the representatives of ‘infidels’ (i.e. people who don’t follow Islam) are waging war on Islam, both of which obstruct the rise of an Islamic world order.
But Western nations, crucially, are not just being targeted through violent Islamist terror attacks like the one we witnessed yesterday; they are also being targeted and undermined through the spread of non-violent strategies, which radical Islamists also use to pursue their overall goal of replacing the West.
What we are facing, in other words, is a multi-pronged assault on our people, institutions, cultural traditions, collective memory and identity, and even our scientific method and relationship to knowledge.
Collectively, these threats constitute what I call ‘Islamist subversion’ —an organised but decentralised programme of spreading ideas and values in education, politics, law, media, prisons, charities, and within Muslim communities themselves, which both transform and weaken Western nations from below.
This is about radical Islamists infiltrating and influencing Western institutions, societies, and cultures long before anybody has launched a terror attack.
Its architects are partly visible, partly covert, determined and resilient, disguising their sources of funding, ideology and affiliation in a coordinated and highly networked fashion.
Unfortunately, today, they are also being enabled by the progressive ‘woke’ left, which no longer believe in England or Britain, in our heritage, culture, and future, which validate the grievances of radical Islamists by proclaiming Western nations to be ‘institutionally racist’, and so are making life much easier for radical Islamists.
The consequence of this attack on our culture and civilisation being successful would simply be disastrous for the United Kingdom and indeed the West.
Yet, so far, our governments have failed to respond seriously to this threat. Why? Because they tend to treat Islamism as a series of disconnected issues.
Radical Islamists trying to influence what is taught in schools. Islamists infiltrating political parties and local councils. The expansion of sharia tribunals or courts. Or Islamists trying to infiltrate or exploit charities and funding networks.
We need to stop viewing this in isolation —it is the combined effect of these problems that allow Islamist activists and institutions to spread their influence and set the stage for the kind of attacks we witnessed yesterday.
To do this, I am putting forward 11 key recommendations for the next government, which should form part of a new and far more robust national strategy.
Consider this an opening salvo in the conversation about how can we fight back against Islamism far more seriously, before it is too late.
1) Take Back Control of our Prison
We need to get a grip on order and control in our prisons.
Islamist extremists have turned prison wings into recruitment hubs, exploiting a culture of appeasement where officers don’t have the backing to confront self-styled emirs, unsupervised worship, and extremist literature.
The answer is not a single terrorist prison.
As expert Ian Acheson argues, dispersal can dilute the power of Islamist dominance, but the most charismatic, violent, and subversive extremists continue to need to be separated from those they try to radicalise.
The state must be put back in charge, not prisoner ideologues.
This is why Ian Acheson has recently proposed a new Very High Control Centre outside the main estate for ideologically inspired prisoners who are also capable of, or have committed, acts of extreme violence against staff.
Governors and ministers must back staff to restore authority, and an Independent Adviser on Counter-Terrorism in Prisons — one of Acheson’s 2016 proposals, which was not accepted by the then Tory Government — should finally be created to hold the prison system accountable.
2) Schools —Give Ofsted Proactive Powers to Investigate Extremism
We need to give Ofsted real teeth.
It can currently inspect schools without notice — after Trojan Horse, there was a limited run of ‘no notice visits’ — but this has not been standard practice.
Ofsted itself has admitted it does not have a general “investigatory function”, meaning it lacks the power to proactively check extremism risks across registered schools.
Both Ofsted and the Department for Education take a reactive rather than proactive approach to extremism.
We need to create a clear statutory basis for targeted, unannounced, thematic inspections where intelligence suggests unlawful sex-segregation, intimidation of staff, extremist teaching, or extremist literature.
Inspectors should be able to compel documents and devices, interview governors and external imams, and issue Governance Failure Notices that trigger intervention.
Only proactive inspection will restore confidence that schools cannot be quietly radicalised under the radar.
3) A National Register and Inspection Regime for Out-of-School Settings
We need to tackle Islamist influence channelled through out-of-school environments — including madrassas, tuition centres, and weekend schools — which fall outside the framework for full-time education but still shape young people’s outlook.
These settings are where extremist teaching, unlawful segregation, or captured governance can flourish precisely because oversight is weakest.
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, currently going through Parliament, makes some progress by introducing a Children Not in School register and tightening Ofsted’s ability to act against unregistered full-time schools.
But it does not establish a comprehensive register of all out-of-school providers, nor does it grant Ofsted standing powers to routinely inspect supplementary provision for extremist content or governance abuse.
Nor does it mandate universal safeguarding compliance such as DBS checks, or provide a clear sanctions ladder of improvement notice, suspension, and closure.
Legislation must go further.
The next government should create a statutory provider-level register with safeguarding and governance conditions built in, require cooperation with Ofsted inspections, and enforce compliance through proportionate but firm sanctions.
Without this, the back door remains wide open for extremism to entrench itself where children are most vulnerable.
4) Confront Blasphemy Intimidation in Schools
As the Batley Grammar School case has shown, we need to draw a clear line: there can be no blasphemy codes in state education.
Teachers — nearly half of whom believe protests over blasphemy, if organised by activist groups outside schools, would put their physical safety at risk— must be protected when lawful materials or lessons spark offence.
Government should issue joint statutory guidance that affirms freedom of speech in schools, guarantees teachers’ right to teach without intimidation, requires trusts to publish clear response protocols, mandates rapid and effective police-school coordination, and provides anonymity or relocation support for targeted staff.
These protections should be built into Prevent training and reinforced by the new Lexicon (see 9. Below). Batley showed how mobs can overrun safeguarding. We cannot allow activist pressure to silence classrooms.
5) Restore History and Civics Education
It is not enough to continually respond to Islamist extremism and subversion. We need to rediscover national pride and educate our children to challenge benign ideological and supremacist influences that aim to replace our society.
Schools have a duty to teach Fundamental British Values, but are not required to use this phrase. We need to rebuild a confident, content-rich curriculum in British history and civics. Pupils should be required to learn about the institutions, liberties, duties, and stories that define this great country, and be taught the critical thinking skills to question activist frameworks that paint Britain as systemically malign.
A new National Centre for Civil Resilience Analysis (NCCRA, see below) should have a role in teacher training in this area, and oversee the production of neutral teaching notes, for example, on Islamism versus Islam, sharia as law versus personal ethics, and how extremist narratives distort history.
This can link to Prevent’s ideology objective, giving teachers legal cover to resist pressure. Above all, we need to revisit and renew our national values: the current “Fundamental British Values” framework is too thin, tainted, and easily manipulated.
A new statement of national values must underpin this civics drive.
6) Regulate Charities to Cut Off Extremist Finance and Fronts
Britain must stop Islamists abusing charitable status as a reputational shield and a funding pipeline.
The Charity Commission has pulled its punches for too long, allowing charities with extremist links to avoid serious enforcement.
The law should clarify Section 76 powers so the Commission can act on serious and credible patterns of risk, not only conclusive criminal proof, and should recognise reputational harm, ideological alignment with proscribed groups, and persistent governance failure as independent grounds for intervention, including trustee removal or suspension.
Charitable trustees’ core duties, currently set out in Commission guidance are not codified in statute; they should be placed on a statutory footing, with explicit duties to avoid extremist associations and indirect risks through overseas partners.
Charities operating in conflict zones such as Gaza or other high-risk environments should face mandatory disclosure of implementing partners and delivery agents, along with enhanced transparency for intermediary funds and beneficiaries.
Britain should also establish a Counter-Extremism Audit Unit inside the Commission to risk-rate trusteeships using NCCRA data and to publish findings openly via a new National Centre for Civil Resilience Communications (NCCRC, see below).
Without a thorough overhaul of regulation, Islamist organisations—including mosques registered as charities—will continue to exploit the sector as a platform for influence and financial leverage.
7) Regulate mosques with Inspection, Accreditation, and Closure Powers
We need to understand better the extent to which supremacism and hate-speech is going unchecked in Britain’s mosques — and take appropriate punitive action.
We need to ensure mosques cannot operate as unregulated spaces where extremist ideas are normalised.
All mosques should be registered, subject to inspection powers similar to Ofsted, and required to submit to governance and curriculum oversight — or face closure.
Imams must be nationally accredited with fit-and-proper checks.
Where repeated extremist rhetoric or incitement is found, regulators must be able to suspend or close mosques, with a route to reopen under new governance.
Sermons and literature should be monitored by the new NCCRA, to protect lawful religious practice. Foreign funding must be traced and declared.
8) Abolish Sharia Councils as Parallel Justice
Sharia courts or councils have acted as parallel justice forums, male-dominated and poorly run, with many cases showing women’s civil rights disregarded.
Sharia councils should be abolished as providers of dispute resolution, leaving all binding matters to the civil courts.
The law should require a registered civil marriage before any faith marriage can take place, as is mandatory in France, so that women always receive the protections of family law and polygamy is ruled out.
Where couples want a faith certificate of marriage or divorce, this must be issued only by newly accredited non-judicial religious bodies, registered and overseen by government, strictly for religious purposes and only once the civil process is complete.
The Home Office has previously refused to regulate sharia councils, recognising that regulation would legitimise them; the official sharia review itself was inadequate and left its recommendation for education on civil marriage unfulfilled.
This framework reflects Baroness Cox’s repeated attempts to legislate for civil marriage as the safeguard, and Dame Louise Casey’s 2016 review, which stressed that Muslim women must have the same protections as others under UK law.
9) Establish the Department for Civil Resilience
The problem of Islamist extremism and subversion cuts across all sectors of society and so we need a cross-sectoral response.
We need a Cabinet-level Department for Civil Resilience to own Britain’s defence against ideological subversion and non-violent extremism — above all Islamist networks.
Today responsibility is scattered —the Department for Education battles extremism in schools, the Ministry of Justice firefights prison radicalisation, the Home Office handles radicalisation and terrorism, while the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government allows sharia councils and charities to slip between the cracks.
The new Department for Civil Resilience — necessarily led at Cabinet level and fully supported by the prime minister — would set strategy and embed directorates across departments, direct budgets, and own the government-wide Lexicon, ensuring Cabinet adoption and compliance.
For the first time, we would have a backbone department with a minister accountable for defending our society’s resilience against Islamist subversion.
10) Create a National Centre for Civil Resilience Analysis
The Government lacks knowledge and understanding of the most important ideologically-motivated violent and non-violent threats to this country.
Government officials and civil servants are woefully informed about the multi-faceted problems Islamism presents.
To address this, we need a new National Centre for Civil Resilience Analysis that cultivates knowledge of Islamism and joins the dots across society.
There are precedents in Austria and elsewhere.
This new national centre would track Islamist offences and prisoners, monitor entryism in schools, unregistered madrassas, sharia councils, mosques, and Islamist influence in academia, and map Muslim Brotherhood networks.
It would draft the Lexicon of ideological terms to be used throughout the state, keep datasets current, and provide the evidence base for strategy and communications.
The Government cannot rely ad hoc on a small number of think tanks whilst under pressure from activist academics and groups.
With this new research and analysis centre—not floating at the edge of government, nor siloed in the Home Office—Britain would finally own its knowledge of the ideological threat and begin to implement proper strategies to deal with it.
11) Launch a National Centre for Civil Resilience Communications
Britain also needs a public-facing communications centre to counter disinformation spread by Islamists, rebuild trust, and make government transparent.
Sweden set up its Psychological Defence Agency to combat disinformation in 2022, although this is mainly concerned with state actors.
We need a body to tackle disinformation — about Islamist extremism, our counter-extremism work, and ‘Islamophobia’ — at home. It needs to specifically deconstruct many of the grievances that are used by Islamists to recruit support.
A new National Centre for Civil Resilience Communications would publish rapid rebuttals, open dashboards on Prevent and Channel, and myth-busting explainers for schools and regulators based on hard facts, free from toxic influences.
This would be connected to the new centre for analysis and would also sit under the Department for Civil Resilience, with all working together in a more coordinated way.
It would replace RICU, whose opaque, unaccountable model—and failure to do combat in the public arena—has lost all trust.
Existing groups like the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM), which try to police narratives in society, and MEND/CAGE’s anti-Prevent campaigns, have gone unchallenged for too long.
Britain urgently needs to show its working and speak clearly about the nature of the ideological threat in this country —openly, credibly, and consistently.
Clearly, none of this will hold if the law itself ties our hands.
The Equalities Act, the Human Rights Act and our subordination to the European Court of Human Rights have created perverse obstacles, allowing Islamists to cloak themselves in “freedom of religion” while undermining everyone else’s freedoms.
Freedom of religion must be subordinated to the defence of liberal democracy, civil order, and national integrity.
That means repealing the Equalities Act and the Human RightsAct.
It means withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights, and revising the Arbitration Act 1996, so sharia councils cannot pass themselves off as courts.
It means updating charities law to disqualify extremist trustees. It even means serious consideration of passing new sedition or subversion laws to deal with the steady drip of anti-British agitation, and of a legally enforced direction for MI5 to take subversion — albeit of a completely new nature — seriously once again.
Alongside this, we need to renew the conversation about national values, so civics education cannot be captured by radical activists.
And we need to do all this now.
Because if we fail to act, then gaps in our system will remain, Islamists will continue to exploit them, and we will no longer have anything left to defend.
Great suggestions none of which will happen under Labour, a Party which even opposed an inquiry into the rape gangs for fear of losing votes. We need a giant of a leader who will stand up to the extremists and the useful idiots on the left who are aiding and abetting them in order to destroy western cultures and societies.
All of the ways that radical Islam is being spread across the west are encompassed in one word- jihad. Jihad means to strive (to spread Islam in whatever way you can) and that you aren’t a proper Muslim until you do this…..so it’s acceptable to lie and spread propaganda,to increase numbers by having lots of children and by immigration,to infiltrate education and places of power and influence, and lastly if all else fails…..We need to hear much more from moderate Muslims but of course, there are reasons for their silence as can be seen in the lives of the likes of ex Muslims who are trying to warn us of the dangers.
Great article ,,, , until yesterday I didn’t realise the extent of antisemitism , I worked in the Jewish community here in Leeds for over 20 years and I’m fortunate to call many of them friends , they are frightened , and I’ve dismissed their fears as I’ve never heard a single person say anything against them , the threat of course is coming from Islam and the woke left as you say , well , ,,, we’ll stand with them ,for them , and by them , they have nothing to fear from the people of Leeds , I’m shocked to learn that they are living in fear , they came here to escape that ,, ,,, and what would help now is a ban on the regular Palestine marches immediately , that will help ..