In April, the chair of the Charity Commission told The Sunday Times: “The problem of Islamist extremism is not the most widespread problem we face in terms of abuse of charities, but is potentially the most deadly. And it is, alas, growing.”

William Shawcross might have had in mind Abdul Waheed Majeed, who travelled from the UK with a charity aid convoy to Syria and drove a truck packed with explosives into the wall of a prison in Aleppo in February. This was believed to be the first suicide attack carried out in Syria by a Briton, but whether this on its own justifies the “most deadly” assessment is up for debate.

Since February, the Charity Commission has hosted meetings for charities that work in Syria, joined a national police campaign to protect young people from the dangers of travelling there and issued 10 tips to help Muslims give safely during Ramadan. It has also opened monitoring cases and statutory inquiries into Muslim charities working in Syria, and into other Muslim charities.

Of the 20 most recent statutory inquiries announced by the commission, five involved Muslim charities. This is hugely disproportionate: out of more than 180,000 charities registered with the commission, there are perhaps 2,000 that can be defined as Muslim or Islamic.

It is hard to see where risk-based monitoring ends and bias begins. The accusation of bias was raised by Sir Stephen Bubb, head of the charity leaders group Acevo, who said last month that the chief executives of Islamic Relief and Muslim Aid, and the head of the Muslim Charities Forum, had told him the regulator was “targeting Muslim charities in a disproportionate way”.

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The residents of Birmingham ought to be able to sleep more easily tonight. Peter Clarke’s 129-page report into the city’s schools found no evidence of plots to indoctrinate, groom or recruit school pupils to an agenda of radicalisation, violent extremism or terrorism. This is also the key finding of the reports commissioned by Birmingham city council and Ofsted.

Clarke, a former counter-terror police chief, found that a small number of governors in a small number of schools have sought to influence curriculums with bigoted views. He says: “There has been coordinated, deliberate and sustained action, carried out by a number of associated individuals, to introduce an intolerant and aggressive Islamic ethos into a few schools. The effect has been to limit the life chances of the young people in their care and to render them more vulnerable to pernicious influences.”

Some of the views expressed are clearly unacceptable. There should be no place in our schools for the promotion of intolerance, division, sexism or homophobia. But these are problems that are capable of being solved without the inflammatory rhetoric most associated with the recently sacked Michael Gove. There is no natural spectrum that takes a person from observing a faith to extremism, to violent extremism.

Unfortunately, a great deal of damage has been done by politicians who whip up hostility towards migrants coming to this country or towards a Muslim community that is very much part of Britain. Viewing the problems of governance through the prism of “culture wars”, with Birmingham schools as the battlefield, was bound to leave many casualties. The reality on the ground is a huge increase in bullying – including in one case Muslim children having a dog set on them – and being taunted with accusations of learning to make bombs at school. The impact of this stigma on a whole generation of the city’s Muslim students when applying to universities and jobs cannot be overstated.

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The chairman of the education trust at the centre of the alleged “Trojan Horse” Muslim takeover plot in Birmingham schools has resigned along with his entire board of trustees.

Tahir Alam, of the Park View Educational Trust, made the announcement today outside the gates of Park View Academy in Alum Rock, Birmingham.

The trust has been the focus of allegations made in the anonymous Trojan Horse letter – now widely held to be a hoax – alleging the existence of a clique of hardline Muslims attempting to seize control of Birmingham schools. Those allegations triggered several inquiries and last month the trust’s three schools were placed in special measures by Ofsted. Mr Alam has always denied any wrongdoing and branded the investigations “a witch hunt”.

Mr Alam launched a scathing attack on outgoing Education Secretary Michael Gove, Ofsted and others, as he announced he would be standing down.

After four months of inspections and scrutiny, the capacity of the trust’s three schools – Park View, Golden Hillock and Nansen – to continue to offer an outstanding education “is at risk of being seriously compromised”, he said.

“We believe strongly that we have justice on our side, and we know we have the support of many from within and outside Birmingham, including our students, parents and members of staff,” Mr Alam said.

“However, we are not prepared to subject our school communities to the further period of intense and bitter pressure that our continuing as members of Park View Educational Trust will see them face. And it is for this reason, and with a deep sense of injustice and sadness, that today we are announcing our intention to resign our positions at Park View Educational Trust and allow new people to assume responsibility with the aim of continuing the success of our schools.”

Mr Alam said the reputation of Park View School had been brought to the point of destruction, and the effect on the communities of the allegations and investigations had been “appalling”.

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