Following the London Bridge terror attack

Following the London Bridge terror attack, questions are being asked about how the UK came to allow so many Muslims into the country

Prime Minister Theresa May has condemned the “single evil ideology of Islamist extremism,” saying “enough is enough”

By Dan Wooding, Founder of the ASSIST News Service

LONDON, UK (ANS –June 4, 2017) – In the third terror attack in Britain in three months, seven people were killed late on Saturday (June 3, 2017) and 48 injured, many of them stabbed, following a confirmed terrorist attack at two sites in London -- London Bridge and Borough Market.

According to media reports, a total of 35 people remain in three London hospitals as of Sunday afternoon, following the vehicle-and-knife rampage in the heart of the British capital.

“This is for Allah”

The shocking incident began when a white transit van drove into pedestrians on the famous bridge, and the three men terror suspects stabbed people at both sites, with at least two eyewitnesses hearing them shouting: “This is for Allah.”

The attackers were then shot and killed, dying within eight minutes of the first call, police said. Eight armed officers fired 50 rounds, which Scotland Yard said was “an unprecedented amount.”

At first, the police believed all three were wearing suicide vests, which ultimately turned out to be fake.

As doctors and nurses at nearby hospitals, worked desperately to help the wounded, police carried out raids in the east London neighborhood of Barking in a signal that authorities are probing at least the possibility that others may have been involved in the planning of the attack. A dozen people were arrested, including several woman, police said.

In Barking, neighbors said police had taken at least five people away early Sunday from a mixed-income, 10-story building believed to have been home to one of the attackers. Neighbors said that they heard loud bangs during the raid and that one of the men, who was ultimately arrested, had tried to flee.

Those arrested were identified by police late Sunday as a 38-year-old woman, a 28-year-old man, a 52-year-old man, 55-year-old man, 27-year-old man, a 55-year-old man who has since been released without charge, 49-year-old woman, 60-year-old woman, a 19-year-old woman, a 27-year-old woman, a 24-year-old woman and a 53-year-old woman. All of the arrests took place in Barking, police said.

Prime Minister speaks out against “evil ideology”

British Prime Minister, Theresa May, has blamed the “evil ideology of Islamist extremism” and is vowing to conduct a review of the nation’s counterterrorism laws. “We cannot and must not pretend that things can continue as they are,” she said in a strongly worded statement to reporters outside 10 Downing Street, her official residence in London, on Sunday. “There is -- to be frank -- far too much tolerance of extremism in our country.”

After these three terror incidents, many people in Britain are now asking how it is that so many Muslims have been able to move to the UK, and set up their own communities, sometimes using Sharia Law, rather than British law, and building hundreds of Mosques.

The “Rivers of Blood” speech

When I was growing up as a teenager in the English city of Birmingham, I can still remember the shockwaves made by a speech in the city by British Member of Parliament, Enoch Powell, which is still known as the “Rivers of Blood” speech.

Powell’s speech strongly criticized Commonwealth immigration to the United Kingdom and the then-proposed Race Relations Bill, and became known as the “Rivers of Blood” speech, although Powell always referred to it as “the Birmingham speech.” The expression “rivers of blood,” which did not appear in the original speech, is an allusion to a line from Virgil's Aeneid quoted by Powell (“As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see the River Tiber foaming with much blood”).

The speech caused a political storm, making Powell one of the most talked about, and divisive, politicians in the country, and lead to his controversial dismissal from the Shadow Cabinet by Conservative Party leader Edward Heath. According to most accounts, the popularity of Powell’s perspective on immigration may have played a decisive contributory factor in the Conservatives’ surprise victory in the 1970 general election, and he became one of the most persistent rebels opposing the subsequent Heath government.

Even today, there are those that point to the fact that “Rivers of Blood” have certainly been flowing in the streets of London and Manchester recently, and believe his speech was prophetic.

How the NHS brought in the immigrants

A flood of immigrants, including many Muslims from the British Commonwealth, began flooding into Britain after the single-payer National Health Service (NHS) was started on July 5, 1948 by the then health secretary Aneurin Bevan. It was a hugely ambitious plan to bring good healthcare to all. For the first time, hospitals, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, opticians and dentists were brought together under one umbrella organization to provide services that were free for all at the point of delivery. The central principles were clear: the health service would be available to all and financed entirely from taxation, which meant that people pay into it according to their means.

But, it wasn’t too long after this, that the NHS faced a problem -- they could get enough doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers to staff it, so the government began encouraging qualified people from the British Commonwealth to move to the UK and work in it.

However, they apparently in those days, also allowed their relatives to move and join them, and then they brought in their relatives, until large extended families were taking over areas of the places they had settled.

Many were from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and the various islands of the West Indies. The latter group were able to largely assimilate into British society, and even the non-Muslim Indians did an excellent job and began acquiring newsagents and even fish and ship shops, but many of the Muslims setup their own ghettos, with mosques and Islamic rules.

It wasn’t long before cities like Birmingham, Bradford, Leicester and parts of London, began looking more like Karachi and Islamabad, then the city they were now living in, and along the way, the Islamic youth began to feel disenfranchised and were easily manipulated into joining terror groups like Islamic State.

Now the government says that it is determined to tackle some of what they see as the underlying issues, amid mounting concern about the number of Britons going to Syria to join so-called Islamic State.

Almost one third of Muslims of working age have no qualifications, even though that proportion is an improvement on a decade ago.

London’s Muslim Mayor

It will come as no surprise to many is that one of President Trump’s first courses of action on Sunday morning, following the Saturday terror attacks in London was to go after the mayor of that city.

In a series of tweets early Sunday morning the president laid into, and apparently misrepresented, what Mayor Sadiq Khan said to Londoners in an attempt to calm them down.

“At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is “no reason to be alarmed!” Trump tweeted.

What Khan actually said what that there was “no reason to be alarmed” by the increased police presence they will see over the next few days. He also vowed that “we will never let them win.”

But still, I am sure that the London Mayor knows that it just takes a few angry young Muslims to make up a terror cell, and that is what is causing the concern as these attacks continue.

Billy Graham Rapid Response Team on the ground in London

The Billy Graham Rapid Response Team are responding to last night’s terror attack at multiple sites around the city just days after the bombing attack in Manchester jarred the country. (See Michael Ireland’s story at: http://assistnews.net/index.php/component/k2/item/2942-muslim-council-of-britain-responds-to-london-bridge-attack.

This marks the eighth terror-related deployment to Europe in recent years. The Billy Graham Rapid Response Team previously dispatched chaplains to Paris, France (2015); Brussels, Belgium; Nice, France; Munich and Berlin, Germany (2016); and London and Manchester, England (2017).

Finally, my son Peter, Wooding was today (Sunday) quickly on the scene of the latest terror attacks, and you can find out more about what he was filming and reporting by going to his Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/woodingpeter.

So, in conclusion, I ask you to please pray for the people of Britain, and also for PM Teresa May, as they face such a dangerous situation. For, as someone who loves the UK, and who lived there for so many years, I know that prayer is the only answer to the anger and hatred that is going on in the land in which I was raised.

Photo captions: 1) Armed police deployed in London after latest terror attack. 2) Hundreds of Muslims flocked to Parliament Square in London to pray back in October, 2015. 3) Enoch Powell. 4) A Muslim woman shopping in a British town and being served a Hindu. 5) The Muslim Mayor of London. 6) Dan and Norma Wooding in Sheffield with their two sons, Andrew (far left), and Peter (far right).

About the writer: Dan Wooding, 76, is an award-winning author, broadcaster and journalist who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, and is now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 54 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the UK. He has written some 45 books, and has one radio show and two television programs all based in Southern California. Dan knows this area on London very well, as he would drive past London Bridge, not to be confused with the iconic Tower Bridge, when he worked in Fleet Street for various British newspapers.

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