I can’t get out of my head how close we came to a tragedy of unimaginable proportions in Liverpool on Sunday – and how little most of the media and our leaders seem to want to talk about it.
If terrorist Emad Jamil Al Swealmee had been able to emerge from hero cabbie Dave Perry’s car and enter Liverpool Women’s Hospital and if he’d been a better bomb-maker the loss of life to mums, their newborn and NHS staff would likely have been catastrophic.
Or, if he’d got just around the corner to Liverpool Cathedral, where he had previously converted to Christianity – perhaps in a bid to fool us all – as veterans and their families were marking Remembrance Day, the carnage would have been equally devastating.
But he didn’t.
Seven years ago, the Middle East’s most evil monster arrived in Britain. He was the latest terror suspect to be killed.
Meanwhile, as familiar pictures of dozens of migrants crammed into inflatables show today, up to a thousand more illegal and undocumented migrants – the vast majority young men from who knows where – stream across the Channel every day to join our asylum system and, in most cases, never leave again.
It’s impossible not to link the inability of the government to stop the boats – and now the jet skis – on the Channel to their inability to keep us safe from domestic terrorism.
More than 22,000 illegals have entered the country this year – many destroy their passports, throw their phone into the sea and tear up any other paperwork, meaning we have no idea of who we are letting in from France.
I can’t get out of my head how close we came to a tragedy of unimaginable proportions in Liverpool on Sunday – and how little most of the media and our leaders seem to want to talk about it. Above: Emad jamil Al Swealmeen 32, was killed in an explosion of a ball-bearing device that had been made at home. The bomb was placed inside the taxi which he was riding to Liverpool Women’s Hospital.
The moment that the suicide bomber was riding in a taxi exploded at a Liverpool hospital is what MI5 and police are currently investigating as a Poppy Day terrorist attack. Experts suspect he copied an ISIS attack in Kabul on a Kabul maternity hospital.
If terrorist Emad Jamil Al Swealmee had been able to emerge from hero cabbie Dave Perry’s (pictured left) car and enter Liverpool Women’s Hospital and if he’d been a better bomb-maker the loss of life to mums, their newborn and NHS staff would likely have been catastrophic
MailOnline revealed astonishing footage today of two inflatable dinghies measuring 50 feet in length being filled with 40 migrants. The video was taken after our reporter saw lifejackets openly being handed at an informal migrant camp in Grand Synthe, near Dunkirk.
Another 50ft inflatable boat was seen being pulled down by a group comprising 50 migrants.
They are professionally run by criminal gangs that smuggle illegal gang members. This is a shameful and perilous operation which undermines our legal immigration system.
Some of these people may be involved in terrorist cells, which is a horrifying fact. These people are primed to radicalize if they find their ideal life in Britain less idyllic.
Because they can’t seem to find a solution, the government is asking us to ignore this issue.
The Opposition and media prefer this scenario, disturbingly. They value social cohesion as well as woke policies that are accepted by London’s metropolitan elite over the need to discuss the real danger Islamic extremist terrorist terrorism presents to our daily lives.
But we must no longer accept a conspiracy of silence around these two intertwined problems because any government’s prime duty is to protect its citizens safe from unnecessary threats.
Al Swealmee’s story is the most stark warning that terrorist prevention programs aren’t up to their task.
Despite being arrested for ‘waving’ a ‘large knife’ in public and setting up a bomb factory in rented accommodation, he was unknown to MI5 by the time he let off that car bomb in Liverpool.
That’s despite seven years of failed bids for asylum – and attempts to convince the authorities by converting to Christianity and changing his name to Enzo Almeni.
Although he claimed that he was from Syria, he arrived in Britain with Iraqi roots. Authorities believe that he could have been Jordanian.
Asylum seekers waited to be deported until his passing on Sunday.
Friends claim that Almeni was Emad Jamil Al Swealmeen, a Syrian mother and a Iraqi father. He is thought to have lived a significant part of his adult life in Iraq.
Some of these people may be involved in terrorist cells, which is a horrifying fact. They are primed for radicalisation if their idyllic life in the UK proves to be anything but ideal. Al Swealmeen arrived in the UK several years ago, and mostly lived in Liverpool, where he was being supported by Christian volunteers from a network of churches who help asylum seekers, it is understood
The long appeals process is used by them to remain in the country. 47,000 foreign criminals and asylum seekers were deported last year, but only 8,000 were returned home.
The complicity shown by Westminster media to fail to hold the government responsible for the attack has shocked me.
During two prime ministerial press conferences – on Sunday evening, over six hours after the bomb went off, and Monday afternoon, just after the UK’s terror threat level was increased from substantial to severe, meaning another attack is considered ‘highly likely’ – not one question was asked by British broadcasters of Boris about the Liverpool incident or general issues of terrorism in the UK.
It reminds me of the bizarre scenario after the killing of the Conservative MP David Amess last month, treated by police as a ‘terrorist incident’ where the media and politicians wanted to discuss online safety, civility in politics and the way we treat our MPs, rather than terrorism.
It’s impossible not to link the inability of the government to stop the boats – and now the jet skis – on the Channel to their inability to keep us safe from domestic terrorism
While I appreciate a police investigation into Sunday’s car bomb explosion is in its early days, I can think of many pressing questions the PM must answer.
Is it possible to verify the identity of illegal immigrants crossing the Channel?
Are the Prevent programmes appropriately funded and fit for purpose?
If so, then how did authorities completely miss Al Swealmee?
Who are the terrorists behind Al Swealmee, a lonewolf bedroom terrorist?
Are there any other social media or tech companies that could help stop terrorist attacks in the UK?
Is there a specific threat from home that could cause terrorism to the UK? Is there anything the public can do to keep an eye out for bedroom terrorists?
And please do not try and tell me that if a car bomb had exploded outside the houses of parliament on Sunday afternoon, Westminster journalists would have spent two press conferences quizzing the PM on Tory sleaze, Covid booster jabs and why he wasn’t wearing a mask at a hospital a week ago.
All those subjects might be easier to discuss; they won’t see you accused of islamophobia or hectored as being heartless about the plight of illegal Channel crossing migrants (who I must remind you are already safe in France).
It is a heartless act to ignore the policy flaws that lead to the danger of terrorist attacks on our shores.
It’s our responsibility to have these uncomfortable conversations and refuse to look away.