On the evening of Wednesday 29 June it emerged that Sheikh Raed Salah, leader of the Islamic movement in Israel, had been detained by officers of the Metropolitan Police Service on instruction from the Home Office.
The fact that Salah was banned from entering the UK in the first place has given rise to much cause for concern about how well the coalition Government’s appointed agents of law enforcement are managing our borders.
In an official statement issued at the time, Home Secretary Theresa May explained: “We don’t normally comment on individual cases, but in this instance I think it’s important to do so.”
May elaborated: “I can confirm he [Sheikh Raed Salah] was excluded, and that he managed to enter the UK. He has now been detained, and the UK Border Agency is making arrangements to remove him [from the country].”
Of course, Salah has the right of appeal when it comes to any such removal from home shores.
By way of conclusion, the Home Secretary stated: “A full investigation is now taking place into how he was able to enter [the UK].”
Background to the case
Sheikh Salah holds Israeli citizenship. His opponents openly claim he’s an active supporter of the Islamic resistance movement Hamas (designated a terrorist operation here in the UK and across mainland Europe), and that he condemns the Western world. These are allegations Salah has vehemently and often denied.
The Islamic movement in Israel over which Salah presides has a stated aim to advocate Islam among Arab Israelis, offers education and social services and broadly promotes a Palestinian nationalistic stance.
Indeed, the Sheikh’s supporters in Britain include the radical Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) which has promoted an annual march attended by supporters of the Iranian Hezbollah group and Hamas.
In addition, Salah’s detractors claim he has been widely reported for making anti-semitic statements. PSC director Sarah Colbourne, however, retorts that Sheikh Salah is “opposed to all forms of racism” (including anti-semitism and ‘Islamophobia’).
Timeline: what happened and when?
According to reports, Salah arrived at Heathrow Airport on Saturday 25 June, a couple of days after the Home Secretary had officially signed the banning order. He then went on to speak at a gathering in London’s Conway Hall.
Unbeknown to him, Salah was being watched at the time by officers from the Metropolitan Police Service.
Sheikh Salah was eventually detained by Met officers late on Tuesday 28 June in central London having returned from a further meeting in Leicester, where he had addressed an audience that was reportedly around 1,000-strong. Salah was then duly incarcerated at Paddington Green Police Station.
The Home Office previously stated Salah wasn’t allowed into this country because his presence would “not be conducive to the public good”. However, speaking on Newsnight on 29 June, Salah’s legal representative Farooq Bajwan suggested that no clear reason had been given for the banning order.
“If he [Salah] was on the exclusion list then he should have been told some time ago so that he could challenge the decision,” explained Bajwan to the BBC.
What might have occurred at Heathrow?
Keith Vaz – chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee – also spoke on Newsnight to answer questions from presenter Jeremy Paxman. Vaz duly referred to the incident as “a bit of a shambles” and stated that Salah should never have been allowed to enter the UK.
What Vaz thinks may have happened – and this is only anecdotal – is that Salah’s name didn’t come up on the computer system. If that was indeed the case, the $64,000 question is: ‘Why?’
According to Vaz, what UK Border Agency officials have apparently said is that they’re being given pieces of paper containing the names of banned individuals as a method of ‘keeping watch’.
If those names aren’t entered onto the central IT database, though, surely it’s ultimately possible they’re going to be missed?
After all, Heathrow Airport is one of the busiest in the world, with thousands upon thousands of people passing through security on a daily basis.
For his part, and also speaking on Newsnight, Conservative MP Mike Freer – who first quizzed Theresa May about the Salah case on the Monday prior to the activist’s detention – stated: “It’s of grave concern if the Government agency tasked with turning around undesirables is not able to do so.”
Worryingly, this episode also begs the question – posed on Newsnight by anti-extremist campaigner Rashad Ali, in fact – as to how many other potentially dangerous ‘undesirables’ have entered the country when they should not have been allowed that privilege?
Tough enough on border controls?
Not surprisingly, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has jumped all over this development, suggesting that the coalition Government’s rhetoric of being tough on border controls had been “exposed as an incompetent sham”.
For sure, this particular incident couldn’t have come at a worse time for May and Co amid the planned cuts of 5,000 jobs across the UK Border Agency as part of the coalition Government’s ongoing austerity measures.
Speaking to the BBC, Cooper said: “The Home Secretary needs to urgently explain why an individual banned from this country was allowed to walk in and, instead of being stopped at the border, had to be pursued by the police instead.”
Cooper continued: “Theresa May said that coming to this country was a privilege and that she would refuse entry to Britain to anyone that she deemed not conducive to the public good. Her words now ring very hollow indeed.”
However, the Labour Party hasn’t come up smelling of roses, either. it emerged on Newsnight that Labour Party members had apparently been arranging for Salah to enter the Parliament buildings at some point during his visit and attend a meeting.
Suggestion of inefficient paper-based procedures
As stated, BBC’s Newsnight exposed the incident during its 29 June programme at 10.30 pm as having possibly been caused by inefficient paper-based processes. Access the link at the foot of this page and you can watch said programme (the relevant segment begins from 19 minutes 30 seconds onwards…)
“This failing may have arisen from two fundamental flaws,” said Peter Forrest, the managing director of national security IT specialist DPM Systems. “First, an insufficiently flat structure and, second, what might be a startling reliance on notoriously unreliable paper-based processes.”
According to Forrest, a flat structure is held up as the ideal in any organisation, whether it be in the public or private sector.
“Instead,” he continued, “the Home Office and its various agencies seem to suffer from superfluous levels of management, borne typically out of poorly-conceived collaboration efforts which, in turn. may well create their own obstacles to productivity and effectiveness.”
Forrest added: “Combine this with any inability to share information because of an apparent determination to use paper-based systems on the front line and maybe a lack of technical integration, and security would be rapidly undermined.”
Continuing his polemic, orrest told SMT Online: “We have seen in a number of countries that a dependence on paper-based procedures and the storing of national security information in discrete databases – be that information from border agencies, police forces or specific criminal justice bodies – in fact jeopardises efforts to detect and prevent criminal activity, while the active sharing of information serves to bolster it, and with tangible results.”
Of course, this works easier in smaller countries where there are fewer obstacles to co-operation.
While it may be difficult to overcome practical concerns and even political objections to such a move, Forrest believes this is not an impossible journey – and that it’s one well worth undertaking.
“Indignation on the part of the Home Secretary at any poor cascading and/or sharing of information is only to be expected,” asserted Forrest, “but it must surely come as little surprise given the structure of the processes that seem to be in place. The only solution, therefore, to preventing future security episodes such as this one is to ensure that all relevant agencies have access to shared information in real-time.”
Outcome of Home Affairs Select Committee questioning
Yesterday, the Home Secretary was placed before the Home Affairs Select Committee to answer questions on this matter. You can watch the outcome from Committee Room 8 on Parliament TV (a dedicated link is provided at the foot of this page… watch the footage from 55 minutes 20 seconds onwards).
In conclusion, at this moment in time the Salah incident appears to have exposed a serious flaw – or flaws – in the system that must be addressed on an immediate basis. The Home Secretary has pledged to do just that.
Senior sources at the Home Office allegedly told the BBC that the necessary information concerning Salah was passed on in good time for the UK Border Agency to have acted. How the system then apparently broke down thereafter is now the core subject of a full-scale Home Office investigation.
As Keith Vaz rightly pointed out, when a banning order is served it must be carried through rigorously and with due process.
It follows on from this that the processes in place must be absolutely watertight.
