Dr Shaaz Mahboob of British Muslims for Secular Democracy writes to the London Evening Standard:

“The alleged Birmingham plot to behead a British Muslim soldier shows that the terrorist threat is greater than ever and that the terrorists, having failed to break the British public’s resolve on 7/7, are prepared to stoop to the lowest levels to impose their ideology upon us.

“Defeating such criminal elements will require the combined strength of the Government and the participation of Muslim communities across Britain. David Cameron’s analogy between far Right organisations and Muslim fundamentalists should have been at the centre of the debate long ago.

“Muslim leaders now need to acknowledge that their short-sightedness, as shown by the complacency of the Muslim Council of Britain over the Dispatches investigation into fundamentalist preaching, has aided extremism, which now seems to be targeting law-abiding Muslims.”

Evening Standard, 1 February 2007

Muslims for Secular Democracy is applauded in the recent much-publicised Policy Exchange publication Living Apart Together as one of the “secular Muslim organisations which seek to find points of connection with the non-Muslim majority”. It is easy to see why a Tory think-tank would look favourably on Dr Mahboob and his group.