“There is a growing belief … that the leaders of ‘moderate Islam’ in the UK have simply lost control of their own ultra-extreme faction…. we non-Muslims are informed of bookshops rife with hate material but never purged by the Muslims themselves; of mosques where preachers speak only of hate against the rest of us but are never cleansed; of social clubs where the young are indoctrinated and brainwashed on a diet of loathing for the non-jihad world but are never closed down.

“Increasing numbers outside Islam are asking: if the elders will do nothing, is this extremism perhaps after all the true face of Islam? If not, why is nothing done?

“To claim to speak for British Islam but only to rage at a Christian bishop who preaches against the evil of hatred – and hatred is an evil in all beliefs – is not the answer. The answer can only be for those Muslims who want to be truly British and live in peace with the rest of us – and they claim they are the huge majority – to put their house in order, painful though this might be.”

Frederick Forsyth in the Daily Express, 11 January 2009