I'm a progressive. What I find is that a subsection within the left that instead of standing for consistency in progressive values, so feminism as applied to mainstream society, as well as within minority communities, gay rights to mainstream society as well as within minority communities.

There was a genocide unfolding against Bosnian Muslims and we, in the United Kingdom, were incredibly angered - a teenager at the time, 15 years old, so my young teenage mind processed that in a way typical to the very passionate and angry and black-and-white way that teenagers often can do.

Does freedom of speech give the right to offend?

I can now say that the more I learnt about Islam, the more tolerant I became.

After much soul searching I was able to renounce my past Islamist ideology, challenging everything I was once prepared to die for.

Islamism is not Islam. Islamism is the politicisation of Islam, the desire to impose a version of this ancient faith over society.

We have to render Islamist extremism as unattractive as communism has become today.