After the multiple jihadist terror attacks Western cities have faced to date, it has been these same far-left and Islamist voices resisting the call to name the ideology behind these attacks as “Islamism”, and to distinguish it from the religion of Islam. They have taken the view that talking about the Islamist ideology unfairly stigmatises all Muslims. They have preferred to beseech us all to understand the grievances that fuel the anger of jihadists, and have encouraged instead ‘hug a Muslim’ campaigns. Yet, after New Zealand, these same voices paradoxically insist on directly addressing white nationalist ideology; they hounded a pregnant Chelsea Clinton; they have taken to compiling blacklists of individuals they do not like; and they are calling for the deplatforming of “right-wing” pundits and protests against “right-wing” media. Consistency has been sorely missing. This is dangerous, despicable and disingenuous. Only the extremist seeks to erase all opposition.

Already, ISIS spokesman Abu Hassan al-Muhajir has broken six months’ silence after the group’s recent humiliating series of defeats in Syria to encourage Muslims to take revenge for New Zealand. But this obviously does not mean that critics of right-wing extremism or the war in Syria are in league with ISIS.

So just as it would be wrong to blame critics of western foreign policy generally for jihadist terror in the West, it should be unacceptable to use this latest attack to to blame critics of Islam or immigration, or to seek to silence the political right generally.