By Ben Pensant

Much has happened on the regressive left since marginalised Muslim Khalid Massood became so incensed by Islamophobia, Western foreign policy and Islamophobic Western foreign policy he was left with no option but to murder five ‘innocent’ people in London: We’ve seen Ken Livingstone prove you can be a member of a progressive political party and believe in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories screwy enough to make David Icke shit out his shell-suit; Jeremy Corbyn humiliate an ITV reporter by coolly blaming everyone but himself for the fact that his party is about as fashionable as that crap red jacket he wears when he meets tyrants; Owen Jones despair at fellow leftists for supporting Trump’s decision to bomb Syria, as if most of them hadn’t spent the last five months scolding dumb yanks for not electing a woman who would’ve bombed Syria quicker than you can say ‘I’m with her!’

But by far the most interesting development was the exciting news from Australia that black Somalian white supremacist Ayaan Hirsi-Ali was forced to cancel her hate-filled Hero Of Heresy tour due to ‘security concerns’. Details are sketchy but one thing we know for sure is that it had nothing whatsoever to do with the death threats she regularly receives from Islamists for linking their murderous ideology to acts of murder. Prior to this an alliance of principled feminists, respected journalists and Van Badham launched a campaign against the tour, throwing decades of female empowerment under the bus to show solidarity with hardline misogynists. They even produced a viral video in which an assortment of middle-class Westerners queued up to lambast Hirsi Ali for having the temerity to speak out against the oppressive religion that states people like her should be killed.

In the two-minute clip a succession of glamorous, fresh-faced ladies in hijab took turns to politely attack Hirsi Ali; their bright eyes, shiny lipstick and sparkling smiles in sharp contrast to the grey, haunted, acid-scarred features we often see on women from strict Muslim countries on the rare occasion they’re allowed to show their faces. ‘You don’t speak for us!’ they yelled at Hirsi Ali. And quite right too as she’s actually speaking for the millions of women who don’t have the freedom to publicly criticise ideas they don’t like, unless they fancy being buried up to their neck in sand and pelted with rocks.

Predictably, the video went down a storm on social media where any criticism of Islam is rightly regarded as the modern-day equivalent of lynching blacks: ‘She should criticise governments, not Islam. Ayaan is a stolid fool and doesn’t know anything about Islam’ railed one brave liberal on Twitter. Some may argue that as her friend was murdered for making a film about Islam and she regularly receives death threats for criticising Islam she knows more than enough about Islam. But any idiot with a laptop knows that the numerous good things Islam has contributed to mankind far outweigh all that pesky oppression, subjugation, mutilation and death.

As another principled apologist put it: ‘While women are still fighting for their rights today, Islam gave women rights 1400 years ago’. Indeed it did, and who but the sick of mind would object to the right to wear a sack over your head in sweltering heat or be punched by your husband if you walk in front of him? Because it’s not for us cultural imperialists to tell women from Islamic countries what to think. Unless of course that woman is notorious bigot Ayaan Look-At-Me Ali in which case it’s practically a hate crime not to.

Still, it’s good to know that folk down under have finally cottoned on that all you need to do to keep the peace is give extremists what they want. If only that were the case in Europe, where even on the rare occasion we get it right we still manage to get it catastrophically wrong. Take Sweden, a country which has gone out of its way to accommodate peaceful and non-peaceful Muslims alike. Yet even that couldn’t stop institutionalised Islamophobia forcing disproportionately huge numbers to flee the country and join ISIS. Despite that Sweden has garnered a reputation as one of Europe’s greatest multicultural success stories, a reputation propagated by liberal academics on Twitter who’ve apparently never been there.

Sadly, that fantasy was shattered last week when a gang of AIK football hooligans thought it would be funny to culturally appropriate the harmless niqab, in the process offending every moderate Muslim, plagiaristic Australian and big-boned Loose Women presenter in the Western world. Regular as clockwork, a few days later yet another marginalised Muslim was left with no option but to mow down innocent people on a busy street in the religious-inspired attack that will forever be known as The Stockholm Truck Attack. Will they ever learn?

Luckily there is no mention whatsoever of hijacking vehicles in the Qur’an, proving conclusively that this Truck Attack had nothing to do with Islam. Though there is no mention of FGM either but that hasn’t stopped Hirsi Ali whining on about it and linking it to Islam just because it tends to occur in strict Muslim communities. Well guess what, sweet-cheeks: so does wife-beating but I didn’t see anyone blaming Islam when Paul Gascoigne broke his wife’s jaw. Well why not? Islam’s to blame for everything, isn’t it? You’ll be telling us Hitler only killed Jews because the Qur’an told him to next. All the while another poor young man with a lust for death sacrifices his freedom just because the elite Western forces that made his life a living hell wouldn’t take a step back and give him exactly what he wants. Sickening.

All of which makes me think if only Britain and Sweden had taken a leaf out of the Aussies’ Big Book Of Appeasement we wouldn’t have caused a harmless, oppressed Muslim to be shot dead by trigger-happy cops and ensured a truck with a mind of its own has some serious jail time to look forward to. The sad thing is the UK has a proud history of bowing down to terrorists. I can’t be the only person who noted the grim irony of peaceful IRA murderer Martin McGuinness shuffling off this mortal coil days before another principled freedom fighter stabbed a policeman to death.

The kid gloves attitude to McGuinness is a textbook example of how to deal with terrorists, especially terrorists willing to man up and put down their guns in the name of peace, forgiveness and accepting that your number is up due to your murderous paramilitary organisation being so riddled with spies and informers you’re left with no option but to swallow that nationalist pride or spend the rest of your days in chokey. Which sums up appeasement’s canny knack for bringing people together. In particular brave people like McGuinness and Ian Paisley, who put aside any differences to bond over their mutual loathing, thirst for power and all-round cuntishness.

Indeed, the lesson to us all is that even bigots and murderers can find some common ground provided you give them whatever they demand: Teetotal McGuinness no doubt admired Paisley’s fire-and-brimstone attitude to the evils of alcohol, while the Ulsterman will have respected the fact that as well as protestants, soldiers and English people the former IRA leader made a fair few Catholics ‘disappear’ too.

One can only hope our Islamophobic government finally realise that the McGuinness route is the only way to go. If so, maybe in ten years time we’ll witness the glorious sight of Michael Adebolajo and Thomas Mair sitting side by side in the House Of Lords: giggling into their hands, finishing each other’s sentences and cheekily arguing over who’s got the biggest knife while bonding over their mutual love of murdering innocent people.

Who knows, if she learns to wind her bloody neck in there may even be room for a hateful extremist like Ayaan Kirstie Alley. Though whether she’s done enough to be given a plum role in government is debatable. It may be perfectly acceptable to start a dialogue with men fond of torturing, mutilating and incinerating people but I for one would feel massively uncomfortable allowing into the conversation a woman who’s written a few books criticising Islam.

Who do you think I am, Neville bloody Chamberlain?