John Cleese Is Not a Terrorist

What could be more absurd than reporting a comedian to a counter-extremism watchdog?

I have recently felt a growing nostalgia for the days when words remained attached to their traditional definitions. We’ve become so used to activists in positions of influence mangling the English language that even basic communication is often impeded. Phrases such as ‘far right’, ‘genocide’, ‘racist’ and ‘hate’ have become so unmoored from their meanings that they have lost much of their utility.

We cannot even be secure in our use of the word ‘terrorist’ any longer, given that so many are determined to abuse it. How else might we explain the fact that John Cleese has been reported to Prevent, the UK government programme designed to stop people from becoming terrorists? Are disgruntled hoteliers, dead parrots and silly walks now deemed early warning signs of radicalisation?

The complaint against Cleese was made by a member of the public, and the details passed to 5Pillars, an Islamist media outlet based in London. In its report, 5Pillars repeated the complainant’s claim that Cleese’s jokes and comments ‘go beyond legitimate criticism of Islam and instead portray Muslims collectively as violent, criminal and morally depraved’. It insists that this may contribute to ‘radicalisation, communal tension, and hate incidents’. (If you haven’t heard of ‘hate incidents’, they are those non-crimes that the police seem to spend so much of their time investigating.)

None of this is true, of course. Cleese rightly rejects the nonsense term ‘Islamophobic’ and instead calls himself ‘Islamosceptic’. How could he be otherwise? This is a man who has brilliantly skewered closed systems of thought for many decades. Most of us will remember the Pythons’ televised debate with Malcolm Muggeridge and Bishop Mervyn Stockwood following the release of Life of Brian in 1979. Just imagine the conniptions if the offended party were a representative from 5Pillars. The priggish outrage of Muggeridge and Stockwood would pale by comparison.

Cleese has responded in the best possible way: by mocking it. He has said of the report to Prevent: ‘One of the proudest moments of my life. I would like to thank everyone concerned’. In another post he wrote: ‘I look forward to being arrested’. The tyrannical mindset – always humourless – cannot bear to be ridiculed. Few will be surprised that there are those who wish to see Cleese silenced, and that they will try to weaponise the law to that end.

But what exactly is 5Pillars? Protecting our Democracy from Coercion, a report published by the UK government in 2024, notes that 5Pillars has ‘expressed support for an Islamic caliphate, Sharia (Islamic principles and law) penal codes and physical jihad’ and ‘repeatedly abused and intimidated Muslim liberals, counter-extremists, and human rights activists’. They sound like a jolly bunch of lads, don’t they?

This isn’t the first time that there has been an attempt to co-opt Prevent for ideological purposes. In June 2019, The Revd Dr Bernard Randall, a chaplain at Trent College in Derbyshire, was referred to Prevent for a sermon he had given to pupils about how it was perfectly legitimate to disagree respectfully with LGBT activists. It was partly in response to training sessions in which teaching staff were instructed to chant ‘smash heteronormativity’.

Here’s a flavour of what he said:

‘But there are areas where the two sets of ideas are in conflict, and in these areas you do not have to accept the ideas and ideologies of LGBT activists. Indeed, since Trent exists “to educate boys and girls according to the Protestant and Evangelical principles of the Church of England,” anyone who tells you that you must accept contrary principles is jeopardizing the school’s charitable status, and therefore its very existence. You should no more be told you have to accept LGBT ideology, than you should be told you must be in favour of Brexit, or must be Muslim – to both of which I’m sure most of you would quite rightly object.’

No reasonable judge of this sort of measured argument could possibly suppose that it merited an investigation by counter-terrorist experts, but the woke ideology is not reasonable. In fact, reason and objectivity are often dismissed by the woke as oppressive Western constructs. (You can read the full sermon here.)

The government has, of course, fallen in line with the woke orthodoxy. An official UK counter-terrorism website lists ‘cultural nationalism’ as one of the ideological strands associated with ‘extreme right-wing terrorism’. This same classification has been incorporated into the Home Office’s Prevent guidance. This is the gloss it provides to the phrase ‘cultural nationalism’:

‘A belief that “Western Culture” is under threat from mass migration into Europe and from a lack of integration by certain ethnic and cultural groups. The ideology tends to focus on the rejection of cultural practices such as the wearing of the burqa, or the perceived rise of the use of sharia law. In the UK this has been closely associated with anti-Islam groups.’

The belief that Western society is under threat from mass migration is not so niche as the government supposes. Indeed, numerous politicians have made broadly the same point, sometimes in the House of Commons. ‘After years of mass immigration, we now face the enormous task of building an integrated, cohesive society. Allowing more and more immigration would make that impossible’. For a fun quiz, ask a counter-terrorism expert whether these words came from a jackbooted far-right zealot or from former Prime Minister Theresa May.

The reckless debasement of language explains why perfectly reasonable objections to the most egregious aspects of Islamic theocracies, such as those outlined by John Cleese in his various social media posts on the subject, are suddenly deemed ‘terroristic’. For example, the complainant to Prevent specifically cited one post that read: ‘I personally prefer a culture that does not approve of FGM, child marriage and killing infidels’. Is that really all that controversial?

Even if it were, my instinct is to say: ‘who the fuck cares?’ The principle of free speech means that we ought to be able to express our opinions without the government getting involved. It is almost certainly the case that Prevent will not take seriously the claim that one of Britain’s greatest living comedians is a rabid extremist, but the fact that such complaints are raised at all shows that the old consensus on free speech is no longer secure.

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