The following op-ed by Anne Marie Waters was published on Thursday by UKIP Daily in a slightly different form.

Post Manchester, There Needs to be Leadership For Britain

by Anne Marie Waters

When things go wrong, that’s when leadership is both tested and defined. Only weeks after innocent people were murdered in Westminster, we in Britain have again had our way of life assaulted by Islamic killers. The aim of Islamic killers is clear, regardless of how it is sanitised by our politicians; Islam won’t tolerate freedom and we are attacked for being free.

The persecution and punishment of the unbeliever is written in every other page of the Koran. Some say these verses apply only to defence, but rarely do they describe (or even know) what it is that Islam defends itself from. It defends itself from disobedience to its rule. To clarify, our freedom is deemed an attack on Islam, and killing us for our defiance is deemed an act of defence.

The increasing number of terror attacks in the West, as well as criminal acts such as child marriage or FGM, are the inevitable result of globalisation. When you shift huge populations to live in countries where their values and way of life will clash with the natives, enormous problems will result. When that happens, it is globalisation that has been defended, because most of our politicians are dutifully on board.

The Islamic terror attacks are being presented to us as a battle of Good vs Evil. We will not, however, name who is good and who is evil, or why. We will not call it what it really is, a battle between freedom and a totalitarian supremacist religion. Instead, we have created a fantasy world where we simply pretend that divisions are created not by the existence of different and incompatible ideologies, but by those who point out the incompatibility or difference. The idea is that we are all “one people”, and the murder and mayhem is brought about by a few bad eggs motivated by nothing in particular.

What is taking place right now is that an expansionist, political, totalitarian and supremacist faith, commanded to achieve world domination, has met with the global destruction of borders. The result of this is obvious: large Muslim populations now live across the Western world, and with them has come Islam — a religion that won’t tolerate free expression, religious or philosophical freedom, and certainly not female freedom. As such, in the West it is now normal for people to whisper, keep their views to themselves, say nothing, or speak only positively about the Islamic master. Thousands upon thousands of girls have been raped by Muslims. Book-burnings in the street have been carried out by Muslims. Marches against free speech and demands that blasphemy be punished are now part of life in this age-old home of freedom.

Fear of Islam so dominates politics that our leaders are terrified to put a foot wrong. Their fear is almost visible. The lines they deliver are all the same — meaningless and evasive. No politician will name the driving force behind these killers; instead they indulge in the pantomime our complicit media dutifully places on the airwaves. All of it is devoted to one thing — sanitising Islam and keeping the borders open.

The standard public discourse is that the Manchester slaughter was an attack by bad people on good people, and not an attack by Muslims on non-Muslims. This is of course in tune with the open border ‘we are all alike’ utopian fantasy that our leaders are desperate to sell.

One example that stands out is the Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who called it an “attack on young people everywhere”. It was not an attack on young people everywhere, it was an attack on free British youngsters enjoying the music and festivity of our beautiful Western culture. Donald Trump called the killer a “loser”. A loser? No, he’s not a loser, President Trump: he is a jihadi; he is performing jihad. Is there nobody who will tell it like it is? Nobody who won’t indulge in this disguise of jihad?

When things go wrong, true leadership shows, and the British people have seen little of it. Instead they are being fed the same platitudes that keep the borders open and the people blind to the terrible realities that accompany the Islamic religion. A leader will face the truth, be honest with those she leads, and offer them the courage it takes to truly confront the challenges of this era-defining issue.

If I were the leader of UKIP, that is what I would offer. The people need an alternative to the platitudes. Those who are going to fight the influence of Islam to preserve our freedoms will only do so by reviving a healthy dose of British patriotism and nationalism. We need to be pro-Britain in order to oppose that which threatens Britain. A leader must clarify what kind of Britain we seek to build, and affirm that we will defend that Britain against all threats.

We will build borders, we will deport those who seek to harm us, we will deport rapists and jihadis, and we’ll do it quickly. We’ll get rid of the Human Rights Act, and the ECHR, and pay no heed to a UN that puts the savagery of Saudi Arabia on a human rights board (who can take guidance from such a hypocritical body with zero principles?)

Speaking of Saudi Arabia: if the Saudis disapprove of our views on Islam, that’s unfortunate, but the British won’t be told what we can and cannot say in our country. The Saudis will just have to exercise some tolerance, won’t they?

I believe that unless tackled with tough measures, attacks in Britain will continue and escalate. Our politicians are wholly committed to the global project, across political parties. To take this on, to truly face this issue and to tell the truth, will mean taking on the entire established internationalist order. It will mean defying and standing up to mainstream politics, mainstream media, unelected international bodies, and truly defending the people. This requires leadership; it requires guts; it requires the very opposite of ‘more of the same’. This issue needs radical thought, radical politics — it needs exactly the kind of party that UKIP ought to be.

Anne Marie Waters is the founder of Sharia Watch UK, a former UKIP candidate for Parliament, and one of the leaders of PEGIDA UK.

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