Writing in the London Times, Michael Gove, a Tory MP and journalist, explains what is going wrong in the UK:

Tony Blair has acknowledged that the fight against Islamist terrorism cannot be restricted to a police action against isolated individuals or small groups. Last summer he spelt out that a much broader effort is required to tackle, at root, the ideology of Islamism that has bewitched so many minds. But in the struggle against extremism the British State has failed to tackle the underlying ideological currents that favour Islamism. Organisations such as the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) and the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), whose members have shown sympathy for extremist positions, are rarely challenged, and certainly not publicly by the Government or its agencies. For moderate Muslims the picture is dispiriting. They see the most religiously conservative and politically provocative groupings enjoy the lion’s share of attention and they wonder how serious the British State is about countering extremism. How can they convince young men within their community that the path of moderation brings respect and a voice in the nation’s deliberations when the most influential voices are seen to belong to those with radical agendas? In Islamist circles a complementary message is absorbed. The British State does not have the courage to face down the advocates of political Islam. Islamists in Britain scent weakness. Just as Islamists abroad believe the West does not have the stamina to resist for long, so Islamists within the UK believe the momentum is with them. Islam’s Leninists have drawn the bayonet, probed, and found mush. Proof of the British State’s institutional weakness came directly in the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings. At the Prime Minister’s behest the Home Office established a series of working groups to tackle the threat of Islamic extremism. A variety of individuals were appointed whose past statements or current affiliations made them very curious conscripts in the struggle against extremism…In my conversations with moderate Muslims, the folly of such a strategy is repeatedly underlined. Mainstream Muslims wish to participate fully in the life of our nation as equal citizens. Their faith is an important, integral, part of their identity but they do not wish it to be the exclusive route through which they relate to the rest of Britain. But the the approach of organisations such as the MAB and MCB, an approach reinforced by the working groups’ report, is to Islamicise every issue with which Muslims come into contact. The success of the MCB, MAB and their allies in dominating the public debate, shaping public policy and driving the media conversation has been profoundly damaging. A narrow version of Islam has been privileged, theological conservatism reinforced and political radicalism given room to advance. A rising generation has been encouraged by those Muslims most prominent in public life to put their Islamic identity ahead of their British citizenship. That generation will have heard the Muslims most fêted by government pay tribute to terrorist leaders and fundamentalist ideologues as figures worthy of respect. That generation will also have had its sense of grievance nurtured even as its sense of separateness has been reinforced. For Islamists and their allies, it has been a golden prospect.

A golden prospect made possible by Tony Blair’s government. Read the whole thing.