Wikileaks: US worried by ‘simplistic’ Tories
By politics.co.uk staff
US officials feared Tory ministers’ lack of experience in government could damage their counter-terrorism approach, the latest leaked diplomatic cables have revealed.
Wikileaks’ latest revelations concern US attitudes to Britain’s counter-terrorist approach. They come as home secretary Theresa May presides over the police investigation into car-bomber Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly, who lived in Luton for ten years before detonating a bomb in Stockholm on Saturday night and then killing himself.
US diplomats were concerned that, after 13 years of Labour government, their replacements could struggle to adopt anything other than a “simplistic” attitude to fighting terrorism.
“Many of the people who will form the new government have been outside of government policy circles for a long time, and they may have a simplistic point of view on CT [counter-terrorism] issues,” one of the cables, published in the Guardian newspaper, noted.
Concerns about the Labour government’s achievements undermine their fears to an extent.
Britain’s efforts to engage with its Muslim community failed to impress American diplomats in the wake of the transatlantic terror plot arrests of 2006.
“Since 7/7, HMG has invested considerable time and resources in engaging the British Muslim community,” a diplomat wrote in August 2006. “The current tensions demonstrate just how little progress has been made.”
The Labour government introduced its ‘preventing extremism together’ taskforce in the wake of the July 7th 2005 terrorist attacks.
They attracted criticism from Tooting MP Sadiq Khan, who won promotion to the shadow Cabinet after the 2010 general election and is now shadow justice secretary.
One cable stated: “Very few of the 64 measures recommended by Muslim leaders on the task force have been implemented, Khan said, creating an ‘air of despondency’ and leading the community to believe that the entire exercise was just a publicity stunt.”
Mr Khan has claimed he was referring to Israel’s 2006 invasion of Lebanon, the Guardian reported.
