Addressing a meeting in London today, the leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron, continued his divisive and dangerous policy of playing politics with issues of Islam, security and community relations. Cameron has had an embarrassing few days where a leading member of his party, Derek Conway MP, was found to have misused the parliamentary staffing allowances. After hastily withdrawing the Tory whip from Conway, Cameron then sought in typical Blairite fashion to deflect attention away from Tory sleaze by once again conflating legitimate Islamic political ideas with violence.

His attack on Shaikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi on the grounds that he "opposes secularism" in the Muslim world and defends the right of Palestinians and Iraqis to defend themselves betrays Cameron’s supremacist neocon world vision in which the people of Palestine and Iraq have no right to resist the brutal occupation of their land. It is ironic that Cameron, who supported the war that has killed more than 650,000 civilians in Iraq and backed the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon in 2005, now lectures others on the sanctity of life.

His call once again for the banning of Hizb ut-Tahrir is hypocritical and opportunistic, given that just over a year ago he wrote to Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain expressing his gratitude to the organisation for its comments on Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon. In that letter he wrote "Thank you again for writing; your views have been taken on board". He is yet to respond to a challenge from Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain to engage in a public debate, rather than using parliamentary privilege to slander the organisation.

These latest comments confirm the anti-Muslim, xenophobic credentials of Cameron’s party. After all, Cameron promoted a Muslim to the Shadow Cabinet only to bully her to change her stance on "extremism". He was forced to dismiss Patrick Mercer after accusations of racism and was recently embarrassed when the Conservative mayor of Mirfield accused Muslims of causing "mayhem with explosives" and wearing "black sack-like clothing".

It is clear that Cameron prefers to ban ideas rather than debate them and believes that voices that confront the policies of Western governments in the Muslim world should be silenced. Cameron’s views, including his previous denigration of the Shariah by equating those who want the Shariah with the BNP, illustrate that the "war on terror" is not about preventing violence but is about preventing Muslims from living in their lands according to their way of life.

New Tory, neoconservative and still nasty.