ROBERT JENRICK: It’s time we stood up against those who defend terrorists

For too long we have harbored people who hate us. One year has passed since the October 7 massacre in which 1,200 innocent Israeli civilians were tortured, raped and murdered by barbaric Hamas terrorists.

But for the 101 hostages still held captive by Hamas, including a Briton, the ordeal is still not over.

Now, as then, we must stand with Israel as they work to rescue the hostages and defeat the Islamic militant groups on their doorstep bent on their destruction.

The response here in Britain to this vicious attack has exposed a deep disease at the heart of our society. Thousands immediately took to the streets here in Britain to celebrate the greatest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust. Before Israel had even responded, masked demonstrators were seen appreciating Hamas, throwing projectiles and destroying buildings.

Since then, our country has become unrecognizable from the liberal, tolerant nation we like to be proud of.

Pro-Palestinian protesters hold smoke flares as they cling to a traffic light outside Downing Street

Conservative MP and leadership candidate Robert Jenrick attends a joint commemoration event in memory of the victims of the October 7 attack

Tens of thousands took to the streets to sing “from the river to the sea” – a genocidal chant that consciously or unconsciously calls for the elimination of Israel. In London, the flags of Hamas and Hezbollah flew proudly, and in Oxford Street there were chants of jihad from masked men who acted with impunity.

At the time, I and other colleagues expressed concern about the police response. While the French banned marches full of anti-Semitism and terrorist sympathizers, we simply had to watch.

I have seen the police crack down on football fans more harshly than the gangs who defile our war memorials and attend events organized by people with ties to Hamas.

Our political elite also seemed intimidated. When an Islamist mob gathered outside parliament the night before a crucial parliamentary vote on the ensuing conflict, the president succumbed to outside pressure. It was left to some of us in this House to confront the Islamists behind it and their far-left sympathisers, and demand a strong response.

With such a cowardly response from our leaders, this disease has increased in our society.

We have seen an explosion in anti-Semitism, and today’s polls show that an astonishing 16 percent of young British adults believe Hamas attacks were justified, rising to 28 percent for those who identify as ‘very left-wing’.

It’s time we stand up and show our backbone. The longer weak politicians like Sir Keir Starmer maintain a conspiracy of silence about Islamism, the more broken our society will become.

That means systematically rooting out those who despise Britain and our values ​​and who have no right to stay here.

Crowds hold up candles and banners during a minute’s silence showing photos of Israeli hostages as British Jewish groups commemorate the first anniversary of October 7.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists are seen heading to cross the Israel-Gaza border fence from Khan Younis during the October 7 Hamas-led attack

As Immigration Minister, I have revoked the visas of those who supported Hamas after October 7 – there is no excuse for Yvette Cooper not to do the same, where possible, for those who support Hezbollah, as we saw this weekend.

Yes, the growing threat of online radicalization is a concern, but Labor must not distract our counter-terrorism experts from what the data shows is the biggest problem: Islamist extremists sowing division in our streets and in our communities .

We urgently need to change our laws to combat the scale of extremism on our streets. The threshold for prosecution is currently ‘incitement’ or ‘encouragement’, so terrorist group cheerleaders manage to get below the criminal threshold. Any expression of support for terrorism, whether intended to provoke imitation or not, should have no place in our society.

And we must finally close the loopholes to ban extremist groups. We cannot wait any longer to ban the IRGC. So we need to tackle extremist groups that are not involved in terrorism – such as Friends of Al Aqsa or the Palestinian Forum in Britain – but are damaging our communities and public order, by creating a new category for banning organisations.

There’s no time to lose. Our country is divided, divided by those who despise us. We must stand up and fight back or risk losing the caring and tolerant country we all love.