Home Secretary Pritti Patel has confirmed there is no way ex ISIS member Shamima Begum will be allowed back into the UK. You may recall Ms Begum fled the UK to go to Syria to join forces with ISIS, had three children all of whom died and went into a refugee camp. She has since been pleading to the UK authorities to return ‘home’ but now her fate looks sealed.
Pritti Patel was very firm in her decision:
" Our job is to keep our country safe. We don’t need people who have done harm and left our country to be part of a death cult and to perpetrate that ideology."
I have to say I agree with her but should the ex terrorist group member be allowed back in ?
Personally, I think Patel is more of a danger to humanity
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Yes, she’s despicable. A perfect fit in the current Cabinet.
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Maybe but should ex members (according to Ms Begum) of terrorist organisations be allowed back into the UK ?
That’s a tricky one Peter and I haven’t made up my mind on it yet. But I have made up my mind about Patel.
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No.
(a post must be more than five characters).
oui
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No, she has chosen to be an enemy of democracy and a risk to the UK - she and all the others should never be allowed to return to the UK
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Actually I took the 5 character thing as a challenge 
But, ultimately, I think that a (very controlled) return should not be ruled out simply out of hand - I have pointed out previously, she is as much a victim as anything else - do you really believe that a 15 year-old girl understood all of the ramifications of her actions.
Can any of us look back at our 15 year old selves and not see a person who was naïve, hot headed, impulsive and just plain inexperienced compared with our older (and hopefully more cautious, if not wiser) selves?
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I tried to post my two-letter reply, but was informed that it must be at least five characters - ho, hum.
Regarding this naive, hot-headed, 15 year-old, who knows what ‘brain-washing’ she might have been subjected to in the time she has been abroad and what havoc she (and others who might return to the UK on her back) might wreak?
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Well, if I revealed all of my secrets…
What can be brain washed can be un brain washed, and people grow up and mature and she may, eventually, come to realise how stupid she has been - the last exposure showed a frightened individual who was still full of bravado and bile, but she was still only nineteen.
I agree, however, that she would need a pretty controlled existence so practicalities might make a return impossible - but I don’t think anyone deserves to just be abandoned and left to fend for themselves if vulnerable - and she is definitely vulnerable, even if it is rather difficult to see.
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How about allowing these people to return to the UK with the imposition of a lengthy period of internal exile on one of our many small islands.
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I wouldn’t be surprised if Patel was the next Tory PM. She is obviously out for the popular vote. If we think Johnson is a grim choice…
I think it is as much the deterrent factor in play here.
If all these “minors” think they can go to foreign lands like this girl did and then just say “sorry, I was misled” and get back all forgiven as such, then heaven knows how many will follow suit.
It’s a hard but very necessary lesson to learn.
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Pour encourages les autres.
Or décourager perhaps?
But will it - I’m not sure.
If you say to a 15 year old “you will regret this when you are 19” this is literally a quarter of a lifetime away, it probably won’t have much impact (and generally the thought of punishment does not deter crime).
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Except that, given the enormity of the media coverage regarding Begum, concerned parents can be helped by simply referring their offspring to this case in point as a deterrent.
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Which, as I said, probably won’t help.
If you are being radicalised then those doing so control the agenda and this will often include undermining the parent-child relationship.
Besides teenagers never think the bad consequence will happen to them.
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I respectfully disagree.
The legal maxim that “hard cases make bad law” should IMO apply to this one, if the justification is to be its value as a deterrent to others.
Just expanding on this - here is a BBC article exploring some of the reasons hersher sentences do not deter crime - and some alternative approaches.