For centuries, English law has been crammed full of legal powers to arrest people who threaten violence or murder in public, or who go around terrifying ordinary people. On Friday, dozens of prima facie examples of such offences were committed during protests against Danish cartoons which offended Muslims by depicting the prophet Muhammad. One man was dressed in the garb of a suicide bomber, arguably an overt attempt to terrify of the kind that has been illegal in this country since at least the Statute of Northampton in the time of King Edward III, in the 14th century. Others carried placards demanding "Massacre those who insult Islam", "Butcher those who mock Islam", "Europe you'll come crawling when Mujahideen come roaring", "Britain you will pay: 7/7 on its way", several of which appear to breach the law dating from Victorian times that outlaws soliciting to murder. A toddler on the march was dressed in a hat that said: "I love al-Qaida." Many adults on political marches over the years have been convicted of breaches of the peace for much less than that.
This country needs a strategy for dealing with campaigns of this kind. But it is not clear from the aftermath of these events that we really have one. In general, reflecting a strong tradition of tolerance and an adult pragmatic sense that things should be allowed to blow over, the approach here has mostly been the give and take that was reflected by cabinet ministers Peter Hain and Jack Straw in interviews yesterday. Having lost so much support among Muslim voters, Labour ministers have a strong partisan interest in not taking potentially inflammatory actions that become rallying points against them. What is more, in the short term, the public peace may indeed be best served by allowing the madness of Friday to burn itself out. In the long run too, the Islamist fanatics may have done themselves damage by revealing so much about themselves in public and handing valuable intelligence to the police and security services.
But it is not enough to shrug one's shoulders about how difficult these things are, still less to give ourselves undeserved pats on the back. Serious things happened in our midst on Friday - and even more serious things are happening to Danes around the world. Ministers do nobody any favours by appearing to imply that the best thing is just to muddle through. These threats are real, present and serious, and if ministers put their heads in the sand they will lose the argument. The Conservative front-benchers David Davis and Dominic Grieve were right to address the difficult issue of criminal charges at the weekend. It was encouraging that moderate Muslim leaders also stepped up to the plate too; much more of this is needed if there is to be an effective strategy against the advocates of violence. So far the police appear to have held off taking stronger action against the fanatics because of the fear, which may have been well-judged, that it would make an already ugly situation even worse. But no society can allow the threats that were made on Friday's march to pass without further action. Those who threatened to kill should answer for their threats. They should be arrested, cautioned and placed under surveillance. If appropriate, the authorities must not be afraid of bringing charges. Those who are eligible for deportation should be deported. There must be no witch-hunt to feed further the ugly and exaggerated sense of victimhood surging through the otherwise legitimate protest against the cartoons' gratuitous insult. But public order and confidence require stronger recognition that limits of acceptable protest and public discourse have been crossed. White racists are rightly arrested and charged for their hate campaigns. Muslim fanatics have to face similar severity for their no less repulsive actions. Ours is a tolerant way of life; we must be robust in defending it against its enemies.
