Any parent of teenagers and many others will have felt their heart clench as they looked at the pictures of Shamima Begum, Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana waiting at the Istanbul bus station before heading to the Syrian borders and into the clutches of Islamic State. While I was home secretary, the then director general of MI5 Jonathan Evans used a speech to equate radicalisation with the grooming of young people. His argument was that we would not stand by and see teenagers ‘groomed’ in any other context, but that people became squeamish about protecting young people in our schools and universities from radicalisation. He has been proved tragically right. How else could we describe the targeting of young girls, and young men in many cases, to leave loving families and to put themselves into mortal danger? The solutions are difficult, but it must be right to include schools and universities in the Prevent programme. I make no particular criticism of the girls’ school in this case, but some have argued that tasking these institutions to help tackle radicalisation stifles ‘free speech’. Of course there are some careful balances to strike, but is the protection and safeguarding of young people not at the heart of all our responsibilities – including those who also educate?

There has also been some ludicrous reporting of the actions of the security services with respect to Mohammed Emwazi since his real identity has been disclosed. We can – and should – dismiss the outrageous apologists of Cage who claimed that Emwazi was just a good lad radicalised by the actions of western authorities. There is also some pretty fatuous reporting of his previous life. What is the news value of hearing that he was a good employee? ‘I know he now hacks people to death, but he was frightfully good at the filing?’

However, there have also been several newspapers willing to give credence to the dual – and contradictory – charges that MI5 did not track Emwazi carefully enough and that was why he was able to ‘escape’ to Syria. At the same time, they report those who argue that MI5’s approaches to him forced him to ‘flee’ to Syria. On the first, it would of course be easier to track and control people if this government had not insisted on weakening the control order regime – a charge consistently and rightly made by Pat McFadden and Labour’s frontbench over the last few years.

On the second charge that agents approached him, does it not it seem completely appropriate that the security services would approach someone they could clearly see was radicalised and heading towards potential terrorist activities to warn him that they knew, to offer him a way out and potentially to recruit an important asset in their battle against other terrorists?

My experience of MI5 is that every day they track hundreds of suspects, they have successfully foiled many attacks, they have to exercise enormously difficult judgements about where to focus limited resources and they save lives. Of course this does not mean they should be free from appropriate accountability and challenge. But the blame for the terror inflicted by Islamic State and British recruits rests fairly and squarely with the individuals themselves, those who have radicalised them and the Islamist ideology which inspires them.

———————————

Jacqui Smith is a former home secretary, writes the Monday Politics column for Progress, and tweets @Jacqui_Smith1

———————————

Photo: BBC