British PM May: Wrong to describe London attack as ‘Islamic terrorism’

British Prime Minister Theresa May has said that it is “wrong” to describe the terrorist attack that led to the deaths of five people on Wednesday, including the attacker, as “Islamic terrorism”, describing what happened as a “perversion of a great faith”.

Following her statement in the House of Commons yesterday morning regarding the attack, Conservative MP Michael Tomlinson asked the prime minister if she would agree with him that “what happened was not Islamic, just as the murder of Airey Neave was not Christian, and that in fact both are perversions of religion?”

Tomlinson was referring to the 1979 car bomb attack organised by the Irish National Liberation Army that killed Conservative MP Neave.

Agreeing with her parliamentary colleague, May said:

It is wrong to describe [the attack] as ‘Islamic terrorism’. It is ‘Islamist terrorism’, it is a perversion of a great faith.

 May’s comment comes after Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said on Thursday morning that the attack targeted Westminster because “we debate…very sharp differences, very freely and respectfully…and this kind of Islamic terrorism doesn’t respect those differences.”

Speaking to Channel 4 News yesterday, Brendan Cox, the husband of murdered Labour MP Jo Cox who was brutally slain by far-right white terrorist Thomas Mair during the Brexit referendum campaign, said:

This person [the attacker] is in no way representative of British Muslims any more so than the person that killed Jo is a representative of white men from Yorkshire.

 Cox urged people to come together against violence and against scapegoating entire segments of society, because terrorists “want us to turn on each other…Their only hope is that they divide our communities and drive neighbour against neighbour.”

Apart from the attacker who was shot dead by armed police inside the grounds of the Palace of Westminster, four people died. PC Keith Palmer was stabbed to death by the attacker, while Kurt Cochran, an American citizen from Utah, and Aysha Frade, a British national with Turkish-Cypriot and Spanish heritage, were killed when the attacker rammed his car into them.

The fourth victim, 75-year-old Leslie Rhodes, died after his life support machine was switched off last night.

The attacker, named as Khalid Masood, 52, was born and raised in the United Kingdom. His birth name was Adrian Russell Ajao.