Again quoting from sacred texts, here's what the sheikh says about taking non-Muslims as friends: "Allah forbids all this." Why? Because Muslims are "forbidden" from appointing kaafirs [disbelievers] to positions where they might "find out the secrets of the Muslims and plot against them by trying to do all kinds of harm" like "bring[ing] our children up as kaafirs".

Why would Shakeel Begg, the imam of an Islamic Centre in London, which has given a platform for clerics like Sheikh Al-Munajjid, Murtaza Khan, Haitham Haddad and other regressives be seen by the "Stand Up To Racism" campaign as a champion of progressive thinking?

The premise on which this far-right Islamist alliance with the British Left and far-Left is based seems bogus. The Islamists need the support of Britain's Left to mainstream themselves, while the Left has needed the Islamists to inject new revolutionary life into last-century Marxism.

We need to change the language. The Beggs, Haddads and Khans of this world aren't radicals. The radicals are the four Muslims who appeared on Panorama challenging their regressive ideas, precisely because they are the progressives.

All four were observant Muslims in their own right and they dared to speak the truth that too often has not dared speak its name: that violent extremism is evidence of a terrible schism within Islam. Politicians reach out to Muslims after every major atrocity by emphasising that it has "nothing to do with Islam", but rather, a "poisonous ideology." This reflex is a measure of how successful the Islamist-propagated catchphrase "religion of peace" (like "Islamophobia") has become. And of course as a personal faith rather than a political ideology Islam is genuinely a religion of peace for many millions of Muslims. Yet people aren't stupid. They wonder why—if all that can be said about this ideological version of Islam is that it's "poisonous"—its believers keep coming back to the religious texts.

The fact of the matter is that the Prophet Muhammad was a warrior and the Koran does contain many passages which, if taken literally, sanction the foulest deeds imaginable. The Koran also contains passages that furnish the basis for religious pluralism. The problem is there has never been an exclusive truth about how to interpret these conflicting narratives in the 21st century from Islam's two prime sources—the Koran and the Hadiths.

The near daily news of atrocities across the world committed in the name of Islam may have nothing to do with traditional or classical Sunni jurisprudence. But the gap between those traditionalists and the Islamists has been growing for more than a century and it has accelerated more recently. Until that gap is closed, there will continue to be a "problem with Islam".

Baroness Warsi, who resigned last year as minister for faith and communities, says she wants the government to engage with a wider cross-section of Muslims, rather than only the "dozen people" who agree with it. She urges ministers to re-engage with the MCB. Yet she also acknowledges that the MCB "continues to produce a leadership that is neither equipped to represent, nor is genuinely reflective of, the contemporary aspirations of large sections of British Muslim communities". So what exactly is there to re-engage with?

The Baroness also says that Muslims will speak up for British values only when they know their concerns will be heard. Yet since 9/11 we have heard little else but these concerns from Muslim community leaders, while the rest of us are waiting to hear more of those voices that spoke out on Panorama. We know there are many more but they fear the abuse they know will be heaped upon them. There is also a natural reluctance to fracture the unity forged by faith, and a sense of being under siege. "The problem is they get stuck in the Muslim First camp," a Muslim friend told me. Not for much longer, we must hope. We risk becoming a very fractured society and we are running out of time.