From 7/7 to 7 October: jihadism still stalks Britain

Twenty years have passed since four British Islamist extremists boarded trains and a bus in London, carrying with them bombs and a belief that mass murder was a sacred duty. Fifty-two innocent lives were extinguished on 7 July 2005, in what remains the deadliest jihadist terrorist attack on British soil. And yet, two decades on, the official commemoration of that atrocity has been clouded by a stubborn refusal to name what truly happened and why.

The political ritual around terror attacks is now familiar: solemn remembrance, hymns to unity and a mantra repeated with near-liturgical certainty: ‘They tried to divide us.’ King Charles and prime minister Keir Starmer each echoed this line on Monday, lauding British resilience and reaffirming national values of democracy and freedom. Their words were dignified, compassionate, even moving. But they were also misleading. The terrorists were not trying to ‘divide’ Britain. They were trying to kill Britons. And they did.

Mohammad Sidique Khan, the ringleader of the 7/7 cell, and all the other bombers were raised in the UK and educated in jihadist ideology. They used foreign policy to frame their worldview and believed the UK was at war against Muslims.

7/7 was not an act of nihilism. It was not madness. It was a deliberate, ideologically driven act of war, waged from within, in the name of a global Islamist ideology. Similar attacks have taken place the world over, using similar techniques, by adherents to the same religious fanaticism.

To reduce this to an effort at social division is to abandon moral and analytical clarity. The 7/7 bombers were not propagandists seeking communal strife. They were jihadists who believed that martyrdom through mass murder was their path to divine reward. Their targets were ordinary people, chosen not for who they were, but for where they lived: the heart of a Western democracy that, in their eyes, was guilty of unforgivable sins at home and abroad.

This matters, because when we sanitise the motives of terrorists, we disarm ourselves against the real threat. Islamist extremism has not vanished from Britain – it has mutated, spread online and adapted to new conditions. Since 2005, the UK has endured further attacks: in Manchester, Westminster, London Bridge, Streatham and beyond. The vast majority were also driven by Salafi-jihadist ideology, often linked to ISIS or al-Qaeda. According to MI5, around 80 per cent of current counter-terror investigations still focus on Islamist threats. The threat level remains ‘substantial’.

Yet instead of reckoning with the ideological roots of this violence, we revert to euphemism. We speak of ‘senseless’ evil and ‘hate’, but never of jihad or violent Islamism. We speak of ‘division’, but never of a desire for ‘martyrdom’. This rhetorical airbrushing serves political ends. It’s an attempt to sidestep painful debates about extremism and integration. But it also evades truth.

The pattern has only deepened since 7 October 2023, when Hamas launched the bloodiest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. In the weeks that followed, there were open displays of support for jihadist groups on Britain’s streets, with Islamist contingents marching beneath banners that glorified terror and demonised Israel. Some gathered in London literally calling for jihad.

Yet, as Monday’s anniversary statements show, our elites continue to evade the Islamist threat. Starmer praised the courage of Londoners and declared that ‘those who tried to divide us failed’. The king spoke of building a society of mutual respect and condemned the attacks as ‘senseless acts of evil’. But evil does not lose its sense when it has a clear aim. The bombers succeeded in their immediate objective: they murdered 52 people. And they did so with the intention, conviction and clarity of purpose of those who believe they are engaged in a holy war against the West. To claim otherwise is not only false, it is also a disservice to the dead.

It is easy to see why this trend has arisen. Former counter-terrorism chief Neil Basu, for example, used an interview in the Guardian marking the 20th anniversary of 7/7 to argue that UK foreign policy, including support for Israel, has contributed to radicalisation and made extremists of people who might otherwise not have been. He called this ‘soul destroying’, and seemed to suggest that we should rethink our global stance – not because it is wrong, but because it might provoke attacks.

This is a dangerous argument. The proper response to terrorism is to stand strong, not to shy away from standing with democratic allies like Israel which are fighting jihadism themselves. It is to face down the extremists, at home and abroad, with clarity, courage and resolve. Terrorism isn’t caused by our values or our alliances. It’s caused by the people who choose to murder in the name of jihad. By people who have chosen to define themselves in opposition to the freedoms and values we cherish. Until we stop indulging this narrative of ‘blowback’, we will keep failing to address that real threat.

What the moment requires is moral seriousness. A willingness to name the ideology, confront its roots and ask hard questions about how such beliefs take hold in British homes, schools and prisons. The British public does not need comfort, it needs candour.

We should remember what happened on 7 July 2005 with grief and with gravity. We should speak not only of unity, but also of vigilance. Not only of freedom, but also of the forces that seek to extinguish it. Not only of values, but also of the violence that has been justified in their name.

To say the bombers failed can only be true if we resolve to prevent others from following their path. That is how we honour the victims: not by veiling the past in euphemism, but by facing it with unflinching honesty. Only then can remembrance become resolve.