Jess Phillips reveals the moral cowardice of the elites

Islamic sectarianism burst into public view over the past six weeks .

Numerous independent Muslim candidates stood for election fuelled by anger over the war in Gaza .

In some areas, the campaigning got ugly. Jews were harassed, women were bullied, Allah was invoked against any infidel thinking of voting for the pro-Gaza ’ Labour Party .

Anyone still denying that we have a serious problem of Islamist intolerance has now officially crossed the line from ignorance to complicity.

Shabana Mahmood’s majority was cut from 32,000 to 3,421 by Akhmed Yakoob , a pro-Gaza ’ independent who won 12,137 votes.

He has joked about domestic violence, and he says 70 per cent of hell will be women’ If there had been a white far-right bloke standing against a Labour woman who had cracked gags about misogynistic violence and whose campaigning style was sullied by harassment and intimidation’, the radical left would be up in arms.

Yet on Yakooob , they’ve been curiously silent.

The reason liberals and leftists refuse to say the i-word is because they don’t want to give succour to Islamophobia ’ and racism’ The true racism here is not in wanting a frank discussion of ethnic separatism and Islamist chauvinism, but in refusing to discuss these things because you think Muslims are so fragile and vulnerable that the truth might hurt them.

Those of us who see Muslims as equal citizens must noisily reject any such silencing of difficult discussion.

Confronting the movement of Islamist -leaning ideas in this country is essential, and naming it is essential.