When tensions are high, politicians cannot afford to stoke the flames

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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Would you risk your life to stand for parliament? That is now as serious a question as it was when the IRA bombed Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet. The fact that Britain has its first prime minister of Indian heritage is a welcome sign of the country’s success at integration. But when Rishi Sunak addressed the nation last night, it was to try and calm forces of extremism which, he warned, “are trying to tear us apart”.

It is eight years since Labour’s Jo Cox was murdered by the white supremacist Thomas Mair; two and a half since the Conservative MP David Amess was killed by the Islamist Ali Harbi Ali. Mike Freer, who was also on Harbi’s hit list and who represents a large Jewish community, has announced he is quitting politics after his constituency office was set on fire. Tobias Ellwood, the former soldier, has been forced to keep his family away from their home after pro-Palestinian demonstrators massed outside. 

We British are a phlegmatic bunch. We have overcome extremism before. But to do so requires being precise about the threats. White supremacy, English nationalism, Islamist extremism are all political ideologies which resist strict definition. Party leaders need to be clearer in calling out behaviour that crosses the line to protect both their colleagues and calm what threatens to become an ever more inflammatory national debate.

Those who stoke division for political advantage don’t help. The claim by the Conservative MP Lee Anderson that Islamists have “got control” of the mayor of London was repugnant and bizarre. Similarly weird and equally disgraceful was the statement by Azhar Ali, Labour’s candidate in Rochdale, that Israel permitted the Hamas atrocities on October 7 as a pretext to invade Gaza. Keir Starmer rightly withdrew support for Ali, and Labour duly lost the seat. Sunak rightly suspended Anderson,…