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Terrorism and Community Relations

: That might be the Mayor's view, and he has broadly indicated as much. That does not satisfy me. When we heard evidence recently from the Mayor of London, I tackled him on the issue. I asked him whether, if a rabbi from Israel—remember that Islam does not have a monopoly on extremism, and that Israel unfortunately has quite a number of rabbis whose views are equally bigoted and, in my view, downright evil, although I hope that they are a small minority—came to Britain and expressed views about Muslims, homosexuality and other matters that were as repugnant as those that that cleric expressed about Jews, he would warmly embrace such a person. I would hope not. I know what I would say about such a rabbi: I would denounce him at every opportunity, as I would a bigoted leader of any religion. Christianity has its bigots. In the American religious right, there are views that go against sanity so far as I can see. All of us have to be careful and that includes the Mayor of London. It falls to us humble MPs, in carrying out our duties, to ensure that, where community relations are concerned, we do not go overboard and cause antagonism with other community groups. The report is valuable, as the Chair of the Select Committee has indicated. No doubt we shall revisit the scene. Good community relations are extremely important, so anything that the House of Commons as a whole can do is welcome at a time of acute terrorism. We have only to look out of the window to see how the House is being protected for all of us—MPs, staff and everybody else. We know the dangers. We know that people committed atrocities on 7 July and that, given the opportunity, others would do the same. It is important to ensure, as we did during the IRA terror campaign, that good community relations are upheld at every opportunity.