Police have misplaced their authority and are giving into Islamists amid ‘battle for Britain’s soul’, Robert Jenrick claims

Police and the government could not only lose control of the streets but the entire country if they don’t act now to tackle Islamic extremists, Robert Jenrick has warned.

The Shadow Justice Secretary says police are giving in to the Islamists because it is ‘too challenging to confront them’.

And he forecast that the UK is facing ‘the fight of our generation’ to defeat them.

The former Cabinet minister, who was responsible for immigration during the last Conservative government, said the ‘reality’ was that ‘the police can no longer sustain their authority in parts of Britain and have to lie to preserve the illusion’.

‘The fight against Islamism is the fight of our generation. It’s a battle for the soul of the country. It begins by telling the truth,’ he said.

Mr Jenrick issued his starkest warnings yet on the threat to the UK from Islamic extremism in the wake of the banning of Israeli football fans from a Europa League match at Aston Villa last November.

Critics including conservative leader Kemi Badenoch have said the police’s decision to prevent the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from travelling to Birmingham was politically motivated rather than genuinely based on safety concerns.

She has accused the force of ‘capitulating to Islamists demanding a ban’ and ‘collaborating with them to cover it up’.

She said embattled West Midlands Police Chief Constable Craig Guildford, who faces accusations he misled Parliament with his version of events, should be sacked and that his position was now ‘untenable’.

Mr Jenrick said: ‘The West Midlands Police scandal matters. It’s about more than a football match. It’s about who controls our streets – the police or the Islamists? Who governs our country – the Islamists or the rest of the British people?’

The Met has also come under fire for allowing regular pro Palestinian marches across the capital since the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel in 2023.

Universities across the country have also been awash with similar protests, including controversially on the anniversary of the attacks.

Calling them ‘hate marches’, Mr Jenrick said police had made ‘myriad excuses’ for failing to take action against them: ‘They refused to be honest and concede the scale of the Islamist challenge was too big to confront.’

Mr Jenrick said the failure to take on Islamic extremism had also been seen in more general failures to protect free speech and to clamp down on the intimidation of MPs.

He warned that ‘mass migration and the abject failure of integration that has flowed with it’ has led to Islamists who are ‘unrespecting of British institutions of law and order’ and are ‘violent or openly threatening violence’ having ‘such a foothold in some places’ that the police ‘do not know how to assert control and maintain order’.

‘They believe they would be overwhelmed if they tried to enforce the law. They are too defeatist to try. Or perhaps they believe it better not to, as the sight of their failure would be catastrophic for faith in them and in the rule of law as we’ve known it,’ he told the Telegraph today.

And citing the case of Batley Grammar School, where a teacher remains in hiding after death threats for showing a caricature of the prophet Muhammad in a lesson, he said Muslim communities had been allowed to ‘police’ themselves.

Free speech campaigners also fear the situation will worsen when Labour brings in what many see as a de facto blasphemy law – a new official definition of Islamophobia – which they believe will be used to prevent legitimate criticism of the religion.

This will form part of Labour’s counter-extremism strategy, expected to be published later this year. The strategy will also review protest laws, potentially giving police greater powers to crack down on disruption.

Only this week the United Arab Emirates warned its citizens about extremism at UK universities and restricted state funding for them to enrol here, prompting US vice president JD Vance to comment:

‘Some of our best Muslim allies in the Gulf think the Islamist indoctrination in certain parts of the West is too dangerous.’

By doing so he added his voice to increasing concerns over free speech in the UK from the Trump administration.

Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, has pledged to ban the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK if Reform wins the next election while some of his MPs have called for a ban on the wearing of burkas here.

On Friday, Reform UK’s candidate for London mayor, Laila Cunningham, said she understood people’s fear over Islam and vowed to ‘give orders to the police that any face coverings are a reason for stop and search. You shouldn’t cover your face’.

‘I fear radical Islam just as anyone. Islamic terrorism is one of the biggest threats we face. It’s a threat that operates in the shadows. It’s not a government threat. It’s very difficult to control, and it’s caused deaths in this country, unnecessary deaths,’ she said.

‘And I understand the frustration that there are Sharia courts in this country, when you see women in a burka. You go down to Tower Hamlets, there are burka markets.’

Mr Jenrick said we would all experience ‘the ubiquity of Sharia courts, cousin marriage, hate preachers in mosques (enjoying charitable status) and rampant anti-Semitism’ unless the rise of Islamist extremism was addressed.

Citing the anomaly between the government’s banning of trail hunting on animal welfare grounds to its stance on the non-stun mass slaughter of animals by Muslims which experts believe causes untold cruelty and distress, he said:

‘Our government is happy to ban trail hunting but won’t touch non-stun slaughter for halal meat.’

And he warned that unless action was taken ‘our foreign policy will be increasingly dictated by Islamism rather than by any traditional understanding of British interests. Women’s rights will be further undermined. Our country will be a more threatening and violent place’.