Patrick Christys: The best tribute to Sir David, would be to make sure this doesn’t happen again

I want to make one thing very clear – online hate speech did not kill Sir David Amess, it appears that radical Islamist terror did.

Now, the individual in custody has not yet been charged, but police have said they believe it was a terrorist act so that’s where we are. I’ll just say this one more time – radical islamist terrorism appears to be the reason for Sir David’s death, not online hate speech.

So why then, as a so called tribute to this great institution of a man, are we looking at introducing David’s Law that could ban online anonymity and clamp down on so-called hate speech online?

It’s a totally pointless tribute to a great man. If you really want to honour his memory, why don’t we clamp down on jihadis? Why don’t we reform the Prevent scheme? Why don’t we stop releasing terrorists from prison early? Why don’t clamp down on radicalisation in mosques? Why don’t we clamp down on jihadi hate speech on the internet?

The individual allegedly responsible for Sir David’s demise was reportedly radicalised by watching videos of notorious hate preacher Anjem Choudary online.

Almost 40 hours of rants by hate preacher Anjem Choudary can be found after in seconds on a Google search. In one speech the 54-year-old Choudary calls on followers to “reject all of the MPs” and slams Muslims who go to their constituency MP for advice.

Instead of introducing laws that could potentially stifle free speech online and clamp down on the right to privacy, why not get tough on terror? It would be like witnessing Khalid Massood, the Westminster Bridge attacker, mowing down people with his car in London, and then banning helicopters.

Why would you do that? Why is the death of an MP being used to push a totally different agenda. And again I’ll say – let’s have it right. One of their own was killed, a serving MP, a man that they all claim to know and love, and still, they don’t want to tackle jihadism.

What will it actually take for this country’s politicians to get tough on terror? What actually has to happen? Some people will be saying – if you ban anonymity online then those faceless trolls won’t be able to say hateful things.

Yes, fair enough, I get that. But what about people who are gay but yet to come out of the closet? What about victims of domestic abuse who need an outlet? What about people who want to express their views but know that they might lose their job if they did, what about dissidents in authoritarian countries?

There are loads of examples of people who should have a right to anonymity online. Can anyone point to any reports from the police so far about this suspect peddling hate anonymously on Twitter? I haven’t seen any.

Making Southend a city is a magnificent tribute to Sir David Amess, it’s absolutely perfect. But yet again, our politicians seem to be making excuses for radical Islamist terror in this country.

They’re trying to sweep it under the rug. We can pretend all we want that rhetoric, discourse and online anonymity killed Sir David. In reality, yet again, it looks like Islamism. The best tribute to Sir David, would be to make sure that doesn’t happen again.