A number of people have rightly been expressing huge concern about the eruption of violent sectarian politics in Britain with George Galloway's Respect party winning in Bethnal Green and Bow. Galloway is a later-day Oswald Mosley, the mirror image of the neo-fascists of the BNP in playing upon and fomenting the irrational paranoia and prejudice of a group that believes itself to be singularly oppressed, in this case the Muslim community which voted en bloc in its perceived particular interests. A reader has sent me the following observations about his impressions of the Respect campaign in Birmingham Sparkbrook, where it won an alarming second place:

'In Birmingham one of the Respect candidates gained second place with over ten thousand votes, just behind Labour. I think what we are witnessing is the communalisation of British politics. The cry that Respect votes were votes against the war is a demonstrably false one. Liberal Democrats offered the best alternative for those who wanted to register a protest against the war. What they did not offer, however, was an Islamist prospectus. In Birmingham much play was made of the situation in Kashmir (most of the Muslim electorate in the Sparkbrook constituency is Kashmiri), and from reading the literature and talking to the activists I gauged that the underlying theme of the campaign was ‘Vote for us to put one in the eye for the infidel Americans, vote for us to bash the Jews, vote for us to kick the Hindus’.

'The implications for Hindus, Jews, Christians, Sikhs and the whole of ‘multi-ethnic’, plural-faith Britain as a result of the communalisation of British politics will be grave. Communal politics and sectarianism depends on the creation of religious hatreds and divides, the assertion and invocation of continual self-pity and victim hood, the construction of hated, conspiring enemies. In a city with a rich ethnic and religious mix like Birmingham, this prospect is a frightening one.

'Respect has become, ipso facto, the Muslim Political Party of Great Britain. In its task of preaching Jihad-lite to the masses it has a great partner in the Socialist Workers Party whose political ideology and extremism needs no elaboration. Rabble rousing, whipping up hysteria, paranoia and communal feeling is the order of the day for this party, and as such it is the fulfilment of much of the Islamist ideological programme: perpetual victim hood, perpetual struggle against the ever-present persecution and conspiracy, perpetual linkage of Muslims lives in Britain to internationalist Islamic causes. In an age in which fascist parties of the right seek straw men and fellow bigots to lock horns with and play on the fears of white working class voters, this is all we need.

'If a political party arose that campaigned in Golders Green solely on the basis of appealing to Jewish religiosity, if a Sikh political party targeted Southall on the basis of playing to the basest fears of Sikhs, or a Hindu political party did the same in Leicester, we would call this for what it is: narrow minded, intrinsically intolerant, chauvinist, exclusivist and demagogic, ultimately detrimental to the fabric of the settlement of our society. But in the case of Respect, tied up in the leftist projection of victim hood, the implications and dangers of this communalism have not been noted fully, indeed, amongst many of the Guardian reading class, they have been applauded and encouraged. It goes further than George Galloway and Bethnal Green, it goes to the heart of the malaise in ‘multi-cultural’ Britain today; the hysteria of modern religion based identity politics and this new form of politics insinuation into mainstream political discourse, a discourse that utilises and mimics the language of ‘multiculturalism’, but is absolutely inimical to whatever good we can salvage from that term (perhaps, a redeemable sense of wanting society to function in plurality, with respect and tolerance); and uses this poorly conceived ideology to bash, berate and beat society with, all the while furthering a base form of sectarianism.

'It is alright if you live in Hampstead and don’t have to face the consequences of these disturbing trends. When you live in cities and towns where religious and ethnic harmony depends on a tempered climate of respect and an opposition to religious based identity politics that formulate and create ideologies of opposition and phantoms of oppression and enemies, the consequences are going to be more than just a headline in the Guardian or Independent one morning.'

Politicians seem to be divided between those who wish to ignore and those who wish to appease this monster of religious and political extremism that is now threatening our social fabric,our liberal values and our democracy. Neither of these pusillanimous reactions is remotely appropriate. This has to be confronted head-on. It is no use talking vaguely, as some are doing, about providing common values and ideals so everyone can knit together. What we are looking at here is the cynical harnessing and manipulation of profound irrationality, ignorance and paranoia to form a revolutionary force. This lethal development is based on lies, prejudice and an intention to harm this society which have to be exposed as such and then fought and defeated with all the cultural, political and legal weapons at our disposal if we are to stop the increasingly frightening Balkanisation of Britain.