BRITAIN: British prime minister Tony Blair has said moderate Muslims are not doing enough to tackle extremism in their communities, while telling MPs there is "no doubt" the UK faces a continuing home-grown terrorist threat.
Mr Blair issued his stern warning after a survey again found a significant minority of British Muslims believed themselves at war with the rest of society - with 13 per cent thinking the perpetrators of the July 7th London bombings should be regarded as "martyrs".
Ministers were plainly disturbed by the findings of the Populus survey for the Times. ITV News revealed a huge gulf between the majority of British Muslims, who want the government to take tougher measures against extremists in their communities, and the 7 per cent who say suicide attacks on civilians in the UK can be justified in some circumstances, rising to 16 per cent if the target is military.
Appearing before the Commons liaison committee of senior MPs, Mr Blair again ruled out a public inquiry into the attacks on the capital's transport network, in which the four suicide bombers claimed 52 innocent lives.
Mr Blair said it was essential that the police and security services concentrated their effort on the present "clear, active threat".
He flatly rejected continuing media reports suggesting the authorities had had information they failed to act upon in advance of the July 7th attacks.
"Each of these stories is just simply wrong," Mr Blair asserted, insisting an inquiry would "end up diverting this vast amount of energy and resource into something that, I'm afraid in the end, is going to tell you what we already know, which is that these four individuals went and committed this act."
Mr Blair told the committee that security measures alone would not defeat the terrorist threat, and that doing so required a sustained challenge to the ideas that sustain it. "If we want to defeat the extremism, we have got to defeat its ideas and we have got to address the completely false sense of grievance against the West."
Sadiq Khan, the Labour MP for Tooting, said yesterday that members of the Muslim working groups set up by ministers after last July's bombings felt "let down" by a failure to follow through on their recommendations. He was worried the government would come to be seen like the Duke of York, "marching all these talented British Muslims up the hill of consultation and dialogue, only to march them down again as very little appears to have changed".
The government dismissed Mr Khan's criticisms, saying many of the 64 recommendations developed by Preventing Extremism Together groups were primarily for Muslim communities to take forward, although some would be delivered in partnership with government, while in others government would take the lead.
The seven working groups had called for a public inquiry into the London bombings and challenged the government to ensure the consultation exercise was "not a one-off event".
However, Mr Blair said he profoundly disagreed that the problem was a lack of government action. "We are not having a debate of a fundamental enough nature within the community, which is where the moderate majority go and stand up against the ideas of these people, not just their methods.
"You cannot defeat this extremism through what a government does. You can only defeat it within a community.
"People should stand up and not merely say 'you are wrong' but 'you are wrong in your view about the West, you are wrong in your sense of grievance, the whole ideology is profoundly wrong'."
With debate again raging about the impact of human rights legislation in the fight against terrorism, Mr Blair told the committee that a promise from a country not to torture a deportee should be a good enough guarantee for British courts to send them back.
Asked whether someone should be returned to a country knowing they would be tortured, Mr Blair replied: "No, but I think you can deal with this. We should be able to get an assurance from that particular government that they will not torture or abuse an individual."
However, he went on: "Our obligation is to get that assurance from that government, but our obligation does not extend to say in all circumstances we have got to protect you [ a terror suspect] when you are causing mayhem in our country."