“We play straight into the hands of those who seek to divide us, of extremists and terrorists around the world, when we imply that it is not possible to hold Western values and to be a Muslim.”

Has anyone actually done that? Trump’s immigration moratorium is meant to prevent jihadis from entering the country among peaceful Muslims. That’s all. It doesn’t carry any implication that it is not possible to hold Western values and to be a Muslim: Khan is constructing a straw man.

And in any case, it is certainly possible to hold Western values and to be a Muslim. What is not possible is to hold certain Western values, such as the freedom of speech, the equality of rights of women, the freedom of conscience, etc., and to hold simultaneously to Islamic law as it has been traditionally formulated. But Muslims who do not accept, or who ignore, the elements of Sharia that conflict with Western secular society can certainly hold Western values.

“It only makes it harder to build integrated and cohesive communities and it makes it easier for terrorists to radicalise our young people, making us less safe, whether in the USA, France or Britain, because it’s dividing rather than uniting and because it builds walls to keep us apart rather than bridges to bring us together.”

So apparently Sadiq Khan would have us believe that Muslims who hold Western values grow so enraged when they hear Trump supposedly implying that Muslims can’t hold Western values that they cast off those Western values and join jihad groups. So we must insist that Muslims can hold Western values, because if we don’t, they won’t hold those values. Their acceptance of Western values, in Sadiq Khan’s view, is predicated on our behavior, and contains a threat: we must affirm that Muslims can hold Western values, or else.

Khan’s analysis is as absurd as it is ominous.

“Sadiq Khan blasts Donald Trump for ‘playing into hands’ of Isil during US trip,” Telegraph, September 16, 2016: