Faith-Based Policy

Young men who run off to Syria to fight for Islamic State frequently know as much about Islam as the cadres of the Farage Falange know about Britain, according to research by the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism. The report states that ISIS dupes tend to be from disadvantaged backgrounds and have low levels of education, and to be motivated more by promises of a better life than by fanatical devotion to the Prophet. It is even claimed that the role of the internet is less to recruit and indoctrinate new blood than to confirm ideas which have already been suggested in personal encounters, and that a "practical, effective and proportionate response should start from a sound understanding of the root causes of the problem."

Little of this will be relevant to the security crusaders in Whitehall, for whom social and financial disadvantage is never a root cause of anything, but merely a symptom of lower-class laziness and depravity; and the idea that reporting schoolchildren to MI5 might cause the infantine resources to rethink their Britishness is of course absurd upon the face of it. The race-baiting Clegg-pledger at the Home Office will certainly not be interested in any report which implies that universal internet snoopery may not be the anti-terroristic panacea; although she may well take on board the idea that meatware-to-meatware interfaces should also be subject to rigorous surveillance, at least when the meatware is suspected of being halal.