7/7, Two Decades On: What Has Britain Learnt?
On the morning of July 7th, 2005, I was at work in my office job at an IT company editing a quote for a customer. I had gotten into the habit of checking the news every couple of hours ever since 911 happened and the War on Terror had been declared, and then it happened! Four British-born men attacked the London underground and transport infrastructure with homemade explosives. They managed to kill 52 innocent people and injured over 700 others in the worst single terrorist incident on British soil. 7/7 marked a moment of permanent rupture, I knew instantly that nothing would ever be quite the same again.
Despite the shocking nature of this suicide attack, it did not come as a surprise to me. For anyone paying attention, 7/7 was 15 years in the making. Ever since extremist Islamist hate preachers began espousing their worldview, and whipping up fervour in the process, something like 7/7 was inevitable. I had encountered such preachers in the early 1990s and had already argued, discussed and debated with them for many years. I had met individuals who were planning to travel to war zones to fight and others who went on to inspire terrorist cells in the UK.
In the aftermath, I resolved to dedicate my life to tackling such terrorism, given my unique vantage point. Twenty years on, I’ve spent thousands of hours in communities, in government buildings, in tense briefings, delivering one to one deradicalisation sessions to convicted terrorists and developing counter-extremism strategies. As we mark this solemn anniversary, I find myself asking: what have we actually learnt?
Shortly after 7/7 the state rushed to bring in more legislation, launch a preventative strategy, strengthen counter-terrorism policing and deliver strong worded statements. The drive to be tough, which was much welcomed in my view, ran up against activists and commentators who felt the state was going too far and the real solution was to listen to the grievances of the extremists. It became apparent very quickly that we were not united as a country on this issue at all and airing the discussion merely fed what we now call the culture war. Meaningful progress in such a climate was going to be very difficult.
The state can only do so much and when you have policy makers who exist in a bubble that is somewhat detached from the lived experiences of most ordinary Brits, their interventions are unlikely to be informed. As such, the galvanisation of civil society that was needed did not materialise. There was a lot of good will and readiness from many quarters but no joint up thinking, no collective strategising and no meeting of minds. In fact, in trying to understand what drives extremism and place myself at the heart of this challenge, I came to understand something far more unsettling.
Extremism thrives not because of ideological zeal, or geo-political developments or even economic inequalities, it thrives because of a social vacuum. Many of those we call extremists (and I have met and conversed with hundreds over the past 30 years) are, first and foremost, disconnected, imbued with a sense of inadequacy, struggling with self-esteem whilst searching for meaning in a society that has offered them little more than consumerism, performative identity politics and a shrinking sense of belonging.
They live in communities that lack harmony, where resentment and mutual suspicion festers as many have very little contact with those from other racial or religious groups. Where faith institutions are dominated by out of touch elders who don’t understand the concerns of young people and seek to stifle them with unexamined traditions. Where people seek answers online only to get caught up in engagement hungry algorithms that just give them more of what they want to hear in order to monetise their attention.
The modern British condition is one of atomisation. We live among people we don’t know. We belong to few institutions outside of work. We no longer gather around shared traditions or shared spaces. The sacred has disappeared not just religious faith, but the sacredness of community, of collective memory, of shared purpose. When we lose what is sacred, we leave people spiritually hungry and extremist ideologies, of all kinds, are only too happy to feed that hunger with certainty and belonging, even if it's wrapped in hatred.
We seem completely incapable of confronting uncomfortable realities and, instead, we have chosen to hide behind unproductive discourse. We have endless debates about definitions, we repeatedly commission task forces to find out what we already know, we invest in academic research that has no practical consequences and we refuse to talk seriously about what really matters. There are difficult and necessary conversations to be had about integration, identity, localised belonging, the social contract, fostering cohesion, the role of religion and what it means to be British in 2025.
Britain, in my humble view, may not yet be entirely broken, but the experiences I've had in confronting extremism have led me to believe that it is slowly, and perhaps steadily, breaking. The essential protective factors, such as community cohesion, shared values and trust in democratic norms, that are necessary to make individuals more resilient to extremist ideologies are incredibly difficult to cultivate in a climate marked by fracture, division, and widespread confusion. Rebuilding a sense of collective purpose and unity is possible, but it requires deliberate effort, honest reflection, and a willingness to confront the uncomfortable truths about the state of our nation.
As we mark twenty years since 7/7, let us mourn but also reflect. Let us admit what we got wrong, and why. Let us acknowledge that no amount of policy or policing can substitute for a society that knows itself. Let us reclaim what is sacred, not in a narrow religious sense, but in the broad, human one: belonging, ritual, purpose. Let’s try to re-discover the importance of community, of localised belonging and of tapping into community capital to support our neighbours. Let’s do the unglamorous work of rebuilding this nation, one relationship, one neighbourhood and one conversation at a time, because without that the next twenty years will look much like the last, if not worse.