18/11/2015 Newsnight

A seven-hour-long police raid on a Paris suburb leaves two jihadis

dead - a female suicide blows herself up as officers move in.

Was this the moment a second terrorist attack

France's security forces believe the business district was

Residents in the neighbourhood are told to stay indoors.

We'll be live in Paris and later we'll be asking if religion is

Also tonight, this senior Conservative activist is

banned from the party for life amid bullying and harassment claims.

A Tory MP tells us the party failed to act.

It was unfortunately swept under the carpet. We did not want to end up

having the general election last, I would imagine.

Is this the right man to lead Labour's Defence Review?

The party appears divided from the very top.

We invite Ken Livingstone to make his case.

And in an exclusive interview, the chief executive of the Premier

League tells us football is ready for its gay superstars to come out.

I actually think the environment would be suitable for them to come

out, if that is the right phrase. I think it would be welcomed and I

think there would be a tolerance to it and the time would be right.

Dramatic events once again in Paris this morning, have confirmed fears

that intended attacks on the city may not yet be over.

Before dawn, security forces launched a series of raids

and arrests in the suburb of Saint Denis in search of the mastermind

The police operation began in Saint Denis. Over the next few hours,

explosions and sounds of gunfire were reported. By 8am reports were

coming through that two suspected jihadists were killed, including a

woman who detonated an explosives vest. At 11:26am police stated the

assaults were over with seven arrested.

Police now believe they may have foiled an imminent attack on

La Defence, the business district of Paris.

Tonight, police have admitted that one of the key attackers, Saleh

Abdelslam, is still on the run, and the manhunt for him continues.

Police confirmed tonight that the ringleader, Abdelhamid Abaaoud,

But could he be one of those killed at the scene?

Mark Urban is there for us in Central Paris tonight.

Emily, a day on which an Islamic State female suicide bomber

detonated device on the streets of a European city would, one imagines,

have created huge headlines in itself a few weeks ago. Today, given

the sort of tragic events that have been going on here, it is just a

detail in this unfolding story. Two days ago the French security

services received intelligence that this flat in Saint Denis was a

possible safe house for this man, Abdelhamid Abaaoud. That is when

they put the Abdelhamid Abaaoud. That is when

surveillance, clearly guessing he would be a trophy. But he was not

arrested. And although one newspaper has reported an American belief he

was killed, there is no corroborative evidence. Instead,

was killed, there is no police tried to get their prize.

They put their operation police tried to get their prize.

And they would have been planning it around this time last night.

Intelligence led police to Saint Denis before dawn in the hope of

catching Abdelhamid Abaaoud, pinpointed as the architect of

Friday's terror attacks. What they found was reinforced steel door and

armed people behind it. In the time it took to force their way in, those

inside resisted and the police fired 5000 rounds. With all that going on,

local residents in this Paris suburb had to be evacuated. Finally, as the

siege came to its climax, at least one suicide belt was set off,

killing two people inside. There were follow-on arrests, too. Tense

moments as the police rounded up were follow-on arrests, too. Tense

those faces spectre of giving logistics support to the

terrorists. Part of a widening dragnet. At the end of it, officers

gathered evidence and tried to make safe unexploded weapons inside. The

police, it seems, were chasing the so-called Belgian mastermind of the

recent Paris attacks. Even if that is right, that leaves the question

about the surviving attackers themselves on answered. What we will

see in the coming hours and days are more raids as different elements of

the plot are rolled out. In Saint Denis, those hoping this will all

end on the same day France finished its national mourning were

disappointed. And Muslim locals voiced their frustration with the

situation. voiced their frustration with the

TRANSLATION: There is a war in Syria.

There is a war in Iraq. There is a war in Palestine and Burma. And

everywhere Muslims are the prime victims. It is normal. Muslims do

not like that. At the end of it all today, far from

closure, the suggestion from the Paris prosecutor that the Saint

Denis cell or a whole new set of operatives.

The investigation open on Friday evening has significantly

progressed. Last night's assault is proof of this. A new terror cell was

neutralised and everything is leading us to believe, considering

their weapons stockpile, they're structured organisation and their

their weapons stockpile, they're have been able to carry out other

attacks. have been able to carry out other

For the French state, the battle will intensify now with an unknown

number of jihadists still at large at the same time as it tries to

account for everyone involved in Friday's atrocities.

They will undoubtedly be all tracked down. Those which will be caught in

the European space will naturally be judged and I would assume severely

condemned. Those who would be found in theatres of war will suffer the

laws of war. That will mean their physical elimination. There will be

no rest onto that has happened. There are no terrorist court cases

in the French approach. Tonight, a Christmas market reopened

in Paris after three days of national mourning. People came not

in the numbers traders hoped. This man has taken a stall for the past

five years and thinks they are still afraid.

We are a sad, very sad. And it is very quiet for the moment. It is

reopening today after five days. We do not know. We hope.

But we are not sure. Many people here have been hoping that today

would be a chance to turn the page and move back towards something like

business as usual. But this morning's events have treat --

cheated them of that hope and shown that this whole ugly drama is not

yet over. France then is still in shock. Its government must be

hoping, and soon, for some more tangible signs of success in the war

it has that shared. Mark,

what more did we learn today about how close the French authorities are

to wrapping up the investigation? At a stage like this in an

investigation like this, it is a wilderness of mirrors. They tell the

wider world certain things, they do not tell them others. Some elements

are added by force. A man, ninth man, we don't know of some of those

things come from an inquiry, sometimes they are given out

deliberately to create a sense of confusion among conspirators. We

learnt a few important things today. The prosecutor said that two of the

suicide bombers from Friday night are still unidentified. When they

are identified, that could take the investigation in all sorts of new

directions. We know also that some intelligence that has been talked

about from, for example, the Iraqi government, talked of up to 25

Islamic State group people coming into France to do this. The level of

raids we have seen in the last few days would suggest to me that

certainly they are looking for more than the narrow group who might have

been directly involved in Friday's events. It is still a big ongoing

manhunt and it is still developing new directions.

Mark Burgan. We will return to the bigger question behind the roots of

these attacks with Professor Tariq Ramadan and Tom Holland later.

During the 2015 election, Road Trip was the Tories' not

so secret weapon, a dynamic organisation which bussed

young activists round the country to campaign in marginal seats - and

But when a young activist took his own life in September,

the organisation - and its founder Mark Clarke - found

Allegations of bullying, harassment and even blackmail surfaced.

Now, a Newsnight investigation has raised troubling questions

about whether the party failed to act on numerous warnings about

Yesterday, in response to Newsnight's request for comment,

This is a story of bullying, blackmail and sexual harassment. Of

a senior Conservative Party organiser who stands accused of

intimidating and exploiting young activists as he was lauded by party

bosses. And it is a story of how time and time again complaints were

ignored by Conservative Central office. It was unfortunately swept

under the carpet because we did not want to have the general election

result lost. Road Trip was a campaigning organisation established

to bus young Conservatives around the country. The idea was to get

young people out to marginal seats to help solve the Conservative

dream. It was the brainchild of this man. Mark Clarke, a former

Conservative parliamentary candidate. After the Conservative

election win in 2015, he was stated by the chairman of the party and the

Prime Minister for his running of the organisation. But behind the

scenes of celebration at Conservative HQ, there was a

problem. Over a five-year period complaint after complaint about Mark

Clarke had been fed into Central office. Nothing appears to have been

done about them. The student vote is really

important. Then in September, this young Conservative activists --

activist tragically took his own life.

Elliott was a bright and imaginative ladder. People loved him. He raised

the humour levels, he would lift the gloom in the room and he had friends

in all quarters. We were visited by the police on the late evening of

the 15th of September to tell us they had found the body of a young

man. They describe the contents he had in his bag. His Winston

Churchill fob watch, his Union Jack wallet. It broke us.

Elliot Johnson had made a formal complaint about Mark Clarke to CC HQ

a month before he decided to take his own life. He told the party that

in the pub behind me Mark Clarke had threatened to ruin his career by

revealing that he had a police caution, a minor misdemeanour. After

Clarke found out about the complaints, he met Elliott in a

different pub with an associate, Andre Walker. Eliot secretly

recorded the meeting. Walker warned him he was on the wrong side of an

internal battle. Elliott spoke of Clarke's bullying

in a letter that his parents found after he had died. It was not the

first complaint that have been lodged with CC HQ. Road Trip

campaigns were often finished by boozy dinners and drinks.

Paid for by CC HQ. I went on one of the first Road Trips. It may have

been the first. It was by the time we got to Harlow that you could see

the darker elements. I started to pick up on anything, that these were

considered normal. Mark pointed out he knew I was outspoken. That he

knew I was outspoken. That doing. Certain campaign thinks. And he said

I should be on board and I could have all of these favours. At that

point he tried making a move on me and I backed away. He stroked my arm

and tried to put his hand up my skirt. I backed off. I went back

into the room, or as I was trying to get back in, he sort of said, if you

are not one of us, we can destroy you, basically. We will destroy you.

If you speak out against us try to take us, we will ruin you. We will

make sure you do not have any kind of career.

And that if I didn't stop crossing him, that would be used to damage

both of us. The woman who we are calling Natasha

said she complained to CCHQ in the summer of 2014. I complained I

didn't think the way that Mark and the other Road Trip activists

behaved was fitting, considering they were representing the party. I

said that I didn't think the way that he had approached me and tried

to blackmail, that it was a good idea. I got an e-mail back saying we

have received your complaint. And I heard nothing more. Newsnight has

spoken to five other activists who say they made complaints to CCHQ

before Elliot's death, so why was no action taken? A Conservative Party

spokesman told Newsnight, the Party Chairman acted immediately to set up

an internal disciplinary inquiry as soon as he received the allegations

in August 2015. One of his own MPs, Ben Howlett, who chaired

Conservative Future from 2010 to 2013 rejects his party's explanation

of events. We have complained about him for a long period of time. It

was not just him, but people attributed to him as well. I

complained when I was national chairman, I complained to the

chairman's office when Grant Shapps took over as the Party Chairman and

I have to say the national chairman has been well aware of all of this

for a long period of time. He backed me up on this, which I was pleased

about. Effectively, somewhere along the lines, all of those complaints

about him and others in the Conservative Party had somewhat been

distanced and been ignored and it was not investigated at that time,

unfortunately. Water off a duck's back, ignore it, move on. It was a

succession of different issues. I have to admit it had taken its toll

on myself and yes, I might be an MP now, but the bullying that I ended

up having to put up with through a successive number of years took its

toll on me and I have had my own mental health issues as a result of

that. What form did these complaints take? What happened with them? Well,

there were a huge range of complaints, I have to say. Whether

or not it was from bullying, bullying complaints, I mean that was

my own personal circumstance. Or whether or not it was women who were

complaining in relation to different advances he was making, and that's

for them to make complaints about, and no doubt they have spoken to

your programme about it as well. There's a huge number. Mark Clarke

was able to influence and even blackmail young activists by abusing

a position he had in the party. He described himself as a director in

CCHQ, something that CCHQ deny. In one message seen by Newsnight,

Clarke used the supposed position in CCHQ to threaten a Conservative

Future branch that was not bringing in enough student volunteers to Road

Trip. He said, "We could ruin them, ban all Tory speakers, blacklist the

leadership for failing to campaign properly in a way that would follow

them their entire career and much more personal stuff." In another

e-mail he told the volunteer, "You add applied for an internship and

were awaiting the outcome of their interview. I have to tell you you

will not be offered an internship. Furthermore, I have to put you on

notice should you be offered a job with any Conservative MP or another

part of the Conservative Party, I will advise them to immediately

terminate your employment." Since CCHQ have been made aware of

Newsnight's allegations, the party says it has banned Mark Clarke for

life. It also says it's withdrawn Road Trip's official accreditation

as an official campaign organisation for the party. But how did Mark

Clarke get away with it for so long? Within Conservative Future after I

left, I would say there was institutionalised bullying within

Conservative Future and it was unfortunately swept under the carpet

in the big scheme of things because we didn't want to end up having the

General Election result lost, I can imagine, and you don't want to talk

about those things whilst the General Election is going on. I find

it staggering if Ben Howlett MP has come out and damned Shapps for not

having acted against complaints that have been made on numerous occasions

by young adults. If these turn out to be true, then Lord Feldman and

Shapps should resign immediately. Clarke told Newsnight he strongly

refuted all allegations of bullying, harassment, assault or attempted

blackmail. He said, "I believe that these false allegations and this

media firestorm are related to the events surrounding Elliot's sad

death. As such, I will be co-operating with the Coroner and

providing him with the fullest information. This is the proper

process. After the inquest, I will look to take legal action for

defamation in respect of these allegations." The Conservative Party

is still to publish its own internal inquiry into Clarke and there are

ongoing coroner and police inquiries into Elliot Johnson's suicide.

What's clear, is that this is a scandal that isn't going anywhere

any time soon. Now as we were going on air tonight,

we learned that in response to our report, the Tory Party has

suspended the National Executive of Conservative Future and taken its

youth wing under direct control. A spokesman told us,

"We have been checking and rechecking, but have not been able

to find any records of complaints that were made but not dealt with -

but we are determined to get to The former Mayor of London, Ken

Livingstone, has taken to Twitter to apologise unreservedly for saying

a shadow defence minister suffering from depression should get

"psychiatric help and pop off and see a GP", after he had criticized

his appointment to Kevan Jones,

who has spoken publicly about his mental health issues in the past,

said Mr Livingstone had caused offence to thousands of mental

health sufferers with his words. The row between the two Labour

figures started after Mr Jones questioned why the former mayor,

who's opposed to Trident, was given an influential role alongside Maria

Eagle, who is heading up the review. Does it feel like this is the end

now? I don't think so. You have Ken Livingstone to your right, you can

ask him in a second. The pair were on Channel 4 News and Ken

Livingstone said to Kevan Jones, "You started it. Where does this

leave the broader question of the Defence Review? Kevan Jones told

Channel 4 News he wasn't clear what Ken Livingstone would be playing and

how the two will work together. This isn't just a debate about

ill-advised comments made about mental health. This is going to the

core of Labour's position on matters of War and Peace and there's two

divisions it is throwing up. The first is on Trident. You have Jeremy

Corbyn and Ken Livingstone, again you will talk about it in a second,

who have one position on Trident. It is opposed by the people who were in

Labour's defence team, including Kevan Jones, and the party. At the

moment, we have the co-chairs of Labour's Defence Review apparently

with irreconcilable views. Secondly, you have another division on Syria.

Last night on this programme, the Labour MP Emma Reynolds said she

would like a free vote. Ken Livingstone said she wouldn't be

getting a free vote. She pro-war, as he called her, if she wanted to vote

in that way, she would be able to but she would have to defy the Party

Leadership. There is an inconsistency for a lot of people in

the Labour Party, for Corbyn's allies, they are allowed to be

independent, to have their own views, and indeed possibly have

those views imposed on the rest of the party on something like Trident.

For people like Emma Reynolds, she's told she has to get in line. The

problem is this: Corbyn said it has to be a gentle new kind of politics

and it has to be consensual. Events in the last 24 hours undermine that.

It doesn't sound very consensual at the moment. Kevan Jones has said you

should apologise to all sufferers of mental health who you offended.

Would you like to do that? I'm sorry. Let's be quite clear... Does

it mean you are genuinely sorry? I'm very sorry about that if they were

genuinely offended. He started this row. Is that an apology? It is an

apology. It is a very odd type of phrase. Are you apologising to Kevan

Jones? If anyone is upset, I'm sorry about that. I didn't start this. I

get up this morning, I find that a Labour MP is denouncing me in this

role saying I don't have any... It is not denouncing, he is questioning

whether you are the right person for this job? Why didn't he pick up the

phone and ask me? I could have told him. For five years, when I was

leader of the GLC, we oversaw civil defence in London. We had to plan

for what would happen in a nuclear war, millions of Londoners would

have died, I lived with that. After 9/11, we spent four years planning

for the terrorist attack we knew was coming. Almost all the time I have

held a public office, there's been that threat of violence because of

military involvement. Did you pick up the phone to Maria Eagle to tell

her you were her co-chair, she learnt from Twitter? It is not my

job to do that. The Labour NEC decides this panel. We have always

had... Why was it your job to go on Twitter and make the announcement

when she didn't know? I didn't go on Twitter. It must have been made for

me by the party. I'm a member of the NEC, I wasn't - I had journalists

phoning, saying we hear you have been appointed this... You said it

at a book launch? I did not do any Twitter about this. It was CND,

people came along... Was that an error not to just make contact with

the person who will now be the co-chair? I left the NEC when that

decision was made to appoint me. I found out about it later on. I

assumed Maria Eagle had been told. The fact is, Maria Eagle and I go

back to 1981. She invited me to come and talk to her student Labour Club.

She said today, it feels like the Shadow Defence Secretary has got an

older man into mark her homework. That is excruciating? She is being

very silly. The reality is, if you are going to have a policy review,

you need someone who represents that commitment to Trident, someone who

has always been dubious about that. We have now got to look at the

facts. We have a very tight budget situation. The British Army now is

smaller than at any time since before World War One. A lot of

people, including myself... You are on opposing sides, she supports

renewal of Trident, you don't. Could you be persuaded on that? Could you

see yourself supporting Trident? I want to see facts that suggest to me

that this is the best way of spending our military expenditure.

You could be convinced on that? You might come out of it saying Trident

is a good idea? If you are going into a policy review, you leave your

previous preconceptions behind, your views behind, we are there to look

at the facts. We need to look at is this the best use of ?20 billion? Or

would it be better building up our Armed Forces? A lot of people will

say you are Jeremy Corbyn's enforcer, you are like having an

informant on the inside? No, my time as leader of the GLC, we always were

living with terrorist attacks. I want to know what's the best way of

protecting the British people. I understand that. We are talking

about the system you take to get to it. Have you spoken to Maria Eagle

today? No. I spent - I have answered the phone 70 times. You haven't

spoken to your co-chair on this? We haven't organised any meetings or

anything. All I have had all day is a wave of media interviews and

endless phone calls, about 70 so far. We will have a chat about it.

The thing is, we fight a very tight budget. We have to work out what is

the best way of protecting Britain. Is it nuclear weapons? You haven't

spoken to Maria Eagle yet, Emma Reynolds told us there should be a

free vote on Syria. Do you agree with her? Absolutely not. If you are

talking about military action, the Labour Party has to have a view for

or against it. Saying a free vote, saying the Labour Party doesn't have

positions. I support her right, if she wants to vote against the whip,

because I often did. The trouble is, as you can surely appreciate, this

points to a wider problem, when you are rowing with your own Defence

Minister, when you are criticising other ministers, when you haven't

told the Shadow Defence Secretary she was aware of your role. It's

chaos in the Labour Party. At this time, when people are desperate for

leadership, they are desperate for cohesion, they know what they get

from David Cameron. When they come to Labour they get a wheel of

fortune, any time they spin it, something different comes up.

I did not start this row. I am talking about the perception.

Presumably the public want leadership? We were told when

Blair took the decision to invade Iraq, this makes us a target for

terrorism. What we have to do is Iraq, this makes us a target for

decide what the biggest threat to Britain is. Is it a nuclear strike

or another Britain is. Is it a nuclear strike

attacks. I want a military system that protects the British people

from being murdered by terrorists. Thank you for

The head of the Football Association, Richard Scudamore,

He said he thought the time was right for them to go public,

He was speaking as a new study emerged showing the

impact made by the Premier League to the UK economy - a business that

He sat down to discuss the economics of football with Evan Davis.

I think it is a number of things. First of all it is the football. The

way the football is played seems to be very attractive to a lot of

people around the world. This season any team can beat any other team.

Most of the world likes the compelling nature of our football.

You are saying football is better in the Premier League than in the

German league? I did not say that. It is more compelling. It is a

particular brand of football. The pace, the intensity and the

integrity of it, the way the games go to the last minute, nothing is

ever decided until the end. That is why around the world, in my view,

people are tuning in to watch our football more than anybody else. You

say around the world people are tuning in. The international

revenues are considerable. Is there anything you can do to serve Ian is

national audiences better? Those plans are well shelved. There is no

plan to take it abroad, to follow say the NFL? There is no plan. It

would be disingenuous to say there is still a will. We think it is a

good idea, the clubs think it is a good idea. But you cannot do it

until you overcome the integrity of competition point. For Crystal

Palace to be drawn at home to Manchester United, to suddenly

decide that game will be played in Hong Kong, even though it is a home

game for Crystal Palace, it will not look like it, I am sure, by the time

you end up in Hong Kong. Do you see the Premier League as a business? Do

you see it as having a wider responsibility to English and Welsh

society, our British society? You cannot see it as a business first.

It is a sporting competition. Unless the sporting covetousness compelling

we have nothing. That competition has this power to engage people to

do more things. To enhance people's lives, to engage people, to enthuse

people, to get people to stick to football and do things through

football, because of football, they would not otherwise do. There is a

business element. That has to be paid for, putting on the show and

doing the good stuff we do in the communities. That is the commercial

side. It is not just the third limb of what we are. There are a number

of areas in which the Premier League is criticised for being rather

ungenerous in the dispersion of its revenues, which are very

considerable. I would be interested in your views. Is it right that

English Premier League clubs should just charge the revenue maximising

price for a ticket, or should they feel there is a responsibility to

help fans get to see the live game? They do not charge the revenue

maximising price for a ticket. That would be higher on a supply and

demand. On average they are paying ?32 50 for tickets. We do not get

involved. The clubs know that the number one strategic priority is to

keep those grounds full. You want people to be able to afford the

occasional trip to watch their team. It may be that a lot of people would

love to go but are being priced out. They can afford to go and see the

occasional game, quite frankly. People can afford it. The unit price

of those games is not always at the highest price. Grassroots football

is the other thing. The Premier League was given some dispensation

from certain competition requirements that might ordinarily

have applied to the sale of television rights. The quid pro quo

was 5% of the revenues are going to grassroots football. The revenues

have increased enormously. Are you still going to be giving 5% of your

overall revenues? What you might define as grassroots is the

complication. Lee Division one is part of your 5%. Anything we give

way to football outsider Premier League is money given away. We are

meeting our commitment. We give away currently about 15% of our top line

revenue. 15%. How much do you give away for football other than teams

that might have been in the Premier League? It would be on an annual

basis somewhere in the region of about ?150 million. But the

revenues, what are we talking about? 2 billion per year. You say it is

more than 5%. Yes. Weigh more. How much goes to real grassroots? About

55 to 60 million. If you just work on that being the amount we give

away to your definition of grassroots, I'd argue, I would argue

that within grassroots you would have to include in my view to lower

league clubs are doing in their communities, for example, what

football league clubs are doing. Football in the community as a

grassroots activity. It is getting people taking part. I would argue

that youth development, those thousands and thousands of young

children engaged in these youth development programmes, is really a

grassroots community based venture. Let's take a step back. There is no

other business that you sit opposite that give away 15% of their

turnover. You are clearly accepting it is not a pure business. It has

obligations to society. It absolutely does, yes. Responsibility

beyond the Premier League, responsibilities to the English

team. Greg Dyke would like 12 members of each squad to be

home-grown players. Good idea? No. Whilst he thinks it is a good idea

we do not think quotas work. Effectively we absolutely believe if

you want to be good enough you have to play against the world's best. We

do invest hugely in youth development. Then you have to put

these players into the real environment against the world's

best. It is a difference of view as to how you improve the fortunes of

the England team. Greg Dyke thinks quotas are a good idea. Myself,

along with pretty much all of 20 club managers, who know a little bit

about this, absolutely think that the best ways to make sure that when

they come through they are good enough to compete against the best

in world. You do not like quotas. You say any player can play in a

team. What about sexuality? Rather any gameplayers? I'm absolutely sure

there are, yes. Why don't they feel able to be public? I do not know. I

cannot speak for them and I don't know who they are. I think the

environment would be entirely suitable for them to come out if

that is the right phrase, and I think it would be welcomed and I

think there would be a tolerance. I think the time would be right to do

that. Do you think the Premier League has peaked in this

broadcasting round? It is not going to carry on growing. That is like

asking if its best days are behind it! Of course it has not peaked. I

can see this go on for some good time yet.

Peter Scooter more. -- Peter Scudamore.

What do we know about the Paris attackers?

Reports about a couple of the brothers suggest they were low life

criminals who drank, took drugs, and weren't remotely religious,

There's more to come out of course, and perhaps sketches of their

But inevitably, an attack of this kind - that the perpetrators

call jihad - raises questions about the nature of religion

in this war and those who carry out cold blooded murder in its name.

We're going to hear two perspectives on the link between Islamic State

Tariq Ramadan, one of the world's leading Islamic

First to Tarik Ramadan, you must recognise that Isis uses is lamb for

the pretext of the terror it perpetrates? That is a solid link.

-- Islam. Yes, once again I do not really agree with Muslims saying it

has nothing to do with Islam. I think yes. At the very moment

somebody is saying this is a slam and this is what we're doing in the

name of Koran and quoting verses, we have at least the moral

responsibility to respond. By denying, in fact, not only the very

essence and the mainstream understanding of Islam, but still we

have to come with arguments and to show that the way they are using the

verses, the prophetic traditions, it is completely wrong. It is not

relying on the right understanding. And we have to challenge the

religious understanding by saying, in the name of this lamb, and this

is what Muslims have been doing even before September 11 in the United

States, by saying, no, that is not acceptable. What we are expecting

also from the media is to hear these voices and go beyond this. Not to

ask the Muslims day in, day out, do justify, to apologise, to explain

what Islam is not. We need to come to the common narrative of what it

is for the huge, almost a consensus among the scholars and Muslims

around the world, and to come together and say, we are combating

violent extremists. What we can now do is our fellow British Muslims to

come to a better understanding and stop this confusion.

Just explain what you mean? It sounds like the media is asking the

wrong questions. If you believe there is a link between what Isis

preaches in the name of terror and a slam, what is the right response? --

Islam. What I am admitting is that as soon as somebody is speaking and

saying they are speaking in the name of Islam, they have to respond, ten

years ago in Britain we had exactly the same story and we were asked the

same. Let me tell you something. The mainstream Muslim conscience and

consciousness and citizenship, and Muslims around the world, our

saying, and have been doing so for so long. The fact is after ten years

we have always the same questions. Are you British? What is your

commitment? Go back to the central question. How do you take religion

out of the terror that is being committed? If you do not like that

question being asked to Muslims around the world, how do you take

question being asked to Muslims by listening to the Muslims saying

this has nothing to do. And by not as King Muslims to find solutions.

And to come to the reasons of why this is done. In the Middle East

now, Tony Blair said there is no relationship between what is

happening in the country and foreign policy. Nothing ever could justify

killing innocent people in Paris. But we also have to say, what is the

foreign policy from France, from Britain, from the European countries

when it comes to killing people in Afghanistan? When a school is

bombarded it is as if the innocent people have less value than our

people. That is not going to help us to solve the problem. Human beings

have the same value. You have to listen to this. I will put this to

Tom Holland. We have not got very long. He is talking about the lack

of equation between recognising the different elements that go into this

terror. Do you accept that? I think it is a very Protestant presumption

that you can siphon religion off from the flocks and Eddie of general

human life. I think that probably for the bombers, religion is the

gin, the tonic of all of the other motives that have propelled them to

do what they do. I do think the religious aspect of it is very

significant. And I think that it is expressive of a crisis in Islam that

is of very profound portions. I think that the crisis is bread of an

increasing liberalism. An increasing look at the fundamental Scriptures

and tenets of Islam and reducing them to their most sanguinary. The

crisis for mainstream is lamb is that it obliges Muslims who belong

to the mainstream to impose a firewall between the beliefs of Isis

and mainstream Islam. As far as I can tell, that is proving, to

mainstream Muslims, to be a huge challenge. Do you think that

Professor Tarik Ramadan is right when he says that the questions are

always asked of mainstream Muslims and we do not ask enough of the

other questions? Tony Blair's foreign policy and our intervention.

Actually I think we do dwell on that a very great deal. And I think in

the way it would be very reassuring to say they are motivated by

hostility towards say British foreign policy. If that were the

case we could do something about it. But I do not think they are. They

have a more apocalyptic strain to their motivation. If they weren't

being motivated purely by a desire to respond to Western foreign

policy, why, for instance, have they been practising genocidal policies

against the Yazidi 's? -- Yazidis. Why do we assume religion is

tolerant? This is very much the thought for the day notion, that you

have a warm, mushy, essentially Anglican idea that everybody should

get along. If you look at the history of religion, it has existed

to defy as well as to join. It has inspired violence as well as peace.

Tarik Ramadan, can you come back on that? I think it is true that

religion can be an instrument for promoting peace. Now we have to come

together and understand quite clearly that from Europe we are all

condemning what is happening. But what we need now is to get it right.

Not to centralise religion and say it is religious. It is also

political. It has to do with what we are doing.

Thank you very much. Sorry, just breaking up at the end. That is all

we have time for. Good night.