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Jihadis. Bad, right?

They chop off people's heads. Of course they're bad.

And we don't want them coming back to Britain, where they might run around and chop off OUR heads.

It's bad enough they do it in Syria, we don't want it in Surbiton too.

Naturally, there's talk of removing passports from these barbarian hordes. We can only hope they don't try to invade, like those starving immigrants in Calais.

Except the world would be a better place if we made friends with them.

At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, the reason it's illegal to render people stateless is because Hitler did it to the Jews, and most of the world (apart from jihadis) are of the opinion it's the thin end of a nasty wedge.

If you take a British passport away from someone born in Britain on the basis you merely suspect they might have been up to no good, the list of stateless persons would rapidly grow to include preachers, charity workers, journalists, benefit claimants, 1970s pop stars and Boris Johnson.

You will inevitably also take passports away from people who aren't so bad, people whose badness is subjective, and people that the current brood of politicians simply don't like.

Moreover, you'd be creating a body of people with a sense of persecution, a lot of weapons, and nowhere to go.

Do you fancy a rolling mob of maniacs simply trotting around with nothing to do but pick a fight?

There are of course votes in saying you will take passports away from jihadis. And there are plenty of brainless newspapers columnists who can thunder on for 800 words about "scum" and "barbarians" and "we don't want their sort here".

But we do. We really, really, do.

(Image: Getty)

These people did not go with a return ticket.

When these young men and women are radicalised, persuaded they should up sticks, leave their families and friends, and tootle off to the Middle East to spill their blood and that of others in a holy war to establish a caliphate, it's a one-way trip.

Jihadi John, right now, is pissing his pants laughing at David Cameron's talk of taking away his passport because he never intends to use it. He, and all the others like him, expect to die and want to die.

By dying they believe they become martyrs. When people here talk about hunting them down like Osama bin Laden they don't worry about a life on the run, they think about notoriety, fame, death and glory.

The ones who come back are the ones who changed their minds.

They are the ones who turned up, full of fire and brimstone, took one look at the battlefield and said to themselves: "S*** no."

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They wanted their mums, they didn't like the sight of blood, they saw the preachers they'd watched on YouTube in the cold light of day and realised they were stone-cold nutters with as much of the spirit of Islam in them as Joan Rivers.

Reports from the war zone in Syria and Iraq suggest that these migrant jihadis are treated as second-class citizens by other fighters - spiritually impure, terror tourists who can be used as cannon fodder because they're worth less than those who are local or have proved themselves in Libya or Chechnya.

They're the ones who just weren't up to it.

Even those who, in the worst case scenario are sent back to be 'sleepers' and launch attacks back in Britain are those considered by their leaders worthy only of being blown up or shot by police. They don't send their best fighters to do it.

And what do we do once they're home?

Well, first off they're easy to spot. Everyone in their family and street will soon know exactly where they've been and what they've been up to.

They are prime, and perfect, targets for MI5 and Special Branch to turn into informants and double agents. They are the obvious people to be included in those community outreach and deradicalisation programmes the government has suddenly worked out are a good idea.

Failed terrorists are the worst PR terrorists can possibly have.

Imagine the scene - a firebrand preacher trying to convince 18-year-olds online to tool up and kill people in the noble name of Allah. But three doors away is a 21-year-old with a thousand-yard stare who's begging to give him his supermarket job back, and telling anyone who'll listen that beheading people is a messy business, there's no hot water and he got sand in his iPod.

It's a lot less likely to work than if that 21-year-old was stopped at the border, had his passport ceremonially removed, and was kicked back to Baghdad where there are guns and grenades aplenty. What's to stop people going out to join him, then?

But there's always one, isn't there.

There could be another Lee Rigby. There could be another Madrid. It only takes one.

Yet that is what our punishing anti-terror laws are for. That's why we let the government listen to our phone calls, read our text messages and scan the airwaves for all mentions of trigger words. It's what we pay the spooks for, it's what they do, and it works most of the time.

And what happens to us if we say that's not enough?

Every time a madman goes on the rampage with a machete - and it happens every few years at least - we worry it's one of "them".

Newspapers talk about Muslim converts when the real risk is cuts to mental health services, and we begin to flinch at every dark-skinned man with a beard.

We blame "them", we throw "them" out, and soon everyone who looks like "them" is cast out too.

Are we a better nation, when we've done that? Nicer, happier?

Nope. We'd be enclosed, embattled, suspicious, and something less than British.

There is only one way to convince the bad guys who hate free speech and behead people at will and want to vote just once, with a bullet rather than a pen.

And that is to show them that no matter what, free speech persists. That they can kill all the journalists they like but the truth persists. That voting frequently and without drawing blood is a better way of going about things.

Because taking away our own citizens' passports, denying them a home and forcing them to congregate in greater and angrier numbers, is what THEY would do to US.

If we want them to like freedom, and democracy, and to confine their hatred of journalists to writing them letters in green ink, we need to practice what we preach.

So don't take their passports. Don't tell them they're no longer welcome in Britain. Reach out to Jihadi John and his chums, welcome them home, and let them know that if they change their minds we can still be friends.

If you doubt it's a good idea, bear this in mind - some 200 jihadis have already come back. They're undoubtedly being tracked and talked to by the security services. How many of us have they murdered, since?

It's surely about time we got some converts of our own.

And besides, we can't nick those murderous little sods if they're in Syria filming grainy YouTube videos on a Motorola Razr.

Come home, Jihadi John. We will welcome you with open arms.