A few weeks ago, I was one of several leaders and chief executives invited to participate in a workshop by my regional government office. The theme of the workshop was community cohesion and the role of local authorities in combating home-grown terrorism. It quickly became apparent that there was a mismatch between the expectations of our government office colleagues and many of us on the front-line leading our local authorities. The line we were expected to endorse by DCLG was that social inequalities were at the heart of – and fuelling – Islamic fundamentalism. The aim of the workshop was to examine ways of increasing engagement and reducing inequalities. This struck many of us as a false premise from which to develop a strategy. When a fellow leader raised the role that UK foreign policy played in stimulating extremism, he was ruled out of order. Despite video testimony of the educated and economically-successful British-born 7/7 bomb plot leader about his motives, it seems some areas were too politically sensitive to be explored. Now, I am committed to promoting community cohesion. It is at the heart of Westminster's One City strategy and essential in a council where the majority of our citizens are born outside the UK. And we welcome any financial support the Government can provide so we have bid into the new cohesion fund launched by Ruth Kelly. And we will focus as requested on programmes designed to strengthen the capacity of our communities to combat extremism. But formulating a strategy that focuses on social causes and avoids political causes is unlikely to achieve its goals. Threats of home-grown terrorism should not dictate this country's foreign policy. But ignoring political realities is to adopt the ostrich position.
