Newspaper columnist Melanie Phillips has attacked Home Secretary Theresa May for “sanitising” Islamic extremism in her speech to the Conservative Party Conference today.
Breitbart London reported earlier today that May used her speech to announce plans for new Extremist Disruption Orders (EDOs) that would criminalise individuals who use social media to spread extremism, in an attempt to appear tough on fundamentalist Islam.
However, she was also at pains to emphasise her belief that Islamist extremism is not truly Islamic, and the result of a very different ideology, an assertion to which Phillips took exception.
Addressing the conference, May said: “The terrorists who murdered David Haines like to call themselves the Islamic State. But I will tell you the truth: They are not Islamic. And they are not a state. Their actions have absolutely no basis in anything written in the Quran. What they believe has no resemblance whatsoever to the beliefs of more than a billion Muslims all over the world.”
Taking to Twitter during the speech, Phillips accused May of “craven revisionism” in her interpretation of the Koran, and even accused delegates of being “ignorant” and “sheeplike” for applauding her “sanitising of Islamic fundamentalism”.
Phillips wrote:
“Islam is religion of peace and has nothing to do with ideology of our enemies”. Home Sec selectively quotes Koran in craven revisionism.
— Melanie Phillips (@MelanieLatest) September 30, 2014
Ignorant, sheeplike delegates at #cpc14 loudly applaud shameless May sanitising of Islamic fundamentalism as mystery unattached “ideology”.
— Melanie Phillips (@MelanieLatest) September 30, 2014
She also accused May of being “incoherent” when denouncing ISIS’s “extreme interpretation” Sharia law:
Now May denounces advance of sharia law at #cpc14 and connects this “violent extremism” with (un?) Islamic terrorism. Utterly incoherent.
— Melanie Phillips (@MelanieLatest) September 30, 2014
Theresa May is increasingly seen as a strong contender for the leadership of the Conservative Party after David Cameron stands down. If the party loses the next election, she will be well placed to succeed him and becoming h the party’s second female leader after Margaret Thatcher, however she has been strongly criticised for a conference speech she made in which she said the Conservatives were seen as the “nasty party”.
The label has stuck and is now a favourite insult of the left.
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