Islamism, not social media, killed David Amess

Apr 12, 2022 by Jill

by Stephen Daisley, Artillery Row:

Why won’t MPs and ministers speak frankly about the motives for his murder?

Ali Harbi Ali’s explanation for killing David Amess is not only icily matter-of-fact but highly inconvenient. Ali, on trial at the Old Bailey, says he was motivated by the Southend West MP’s vote for airstrikes in Syria. The accused told the jury of his regret at being unable to travel there, adding: “I thought if I couldn’t go join Islamic State, I should try and do something here to help Muslims here.”

Amess’s membership of Conservative Friends of Israel was another “big problem” for Ali and he also described a plan to “attack and hopefully kill Michael Gove”. During cross-examination, the 26-year-old said he felt no shame, stating: “If I thought I did anything wrong, I wouldn’t have done it”. Asked what the MP’s death had achieved, Ali replied: “For one, he can’t vote again.”

Statements like these are no doubt why a jury at the Old Bailey took only 18 minutes to convict him yesterday afternoon. They are also inconvenient because they cast fresh and particularly unforgiving light on how David Amess’s colleagues responded to his death. Social media was identified as the culprit with a lockstep uniformity common to the British political class and a North Korean military parade.

Read here

Read also: This was an act of Islamist terrorism – stop pretending otherwise by Tom Slater, spiked

The murder of David Amess: The speech the PM should make by Stuart Major, TCW