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A Muslim country is warning Europe about Islamism. Not Christian conservatives. Not the "far right". Not anyone you can wave away as an Islamophobe. The United Arab Emirates. The UAE has spent years taking a hard line against political Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood, which the country classifies as a terrorist organisation. And in June 2026, the UAE's ambassador to the EU, Mohammed Ismail Al Sahlawi, sat in the European Parliament at a conference with this title: "Muslim Brotherhood: a real threat to Europe." Hard to misread. The warning was about the Brotherhood's methods. Infiltrating European societies and institutions, influencing political decisions, spreading extremist ideology. Read that again. A Muslim country is warning Europe about political Islam. And here is what matters most! Islamism is not only the man with a rifle or a suicide vest. That is the outermost, violent expression of it. Islamism can also work slowly. And politically. Through organisations, universities, religious institutions, activism, lobbying, political and institutional influence. That is exactly why it is so dangerous to look only for the man with the bomb belt. Because Islamism can arrive in a suit. It can hold a university degree. It can run an organisation. It can sit close to political decision makers. And it can learn to speak the West's own language about tolerance, rights and diversity, while working for values that collide with liberal democracy. And no. This is not just something the UAE claims. Britain's own government has investigated the Muslim Brotherhood. The British review found that Brotherhood-associated and Brotherhood-influenced groups in the UK had, at various points, held significant influence over the largest Muslim student organisation, national Muslim organisations in dialogue with the government, charities and some mosques. The same review concluded that parts of the Brotherhood's ideology and activities run counter to democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, equality, and mutual respect and tolerance between faiths. So this is not only about terror. It is about ideology. And now comes the part that should stop every European in their tracks. The UAE has become so concerned about Islamist radicalisation at British universities that British universities have been removed from the list of institutions where Emirati students can receive state scholarships. Young Emiratis are still free to study in Britain. With their own money. The UAE simply will not pay for it anymore. A person with direct knowledge of the discussions put it plainly to the Financial Times: "They don't want their kids to be radicalised on campus." Sit with that for a second. A Muslim, Arab country is worried about sending its Muslim young people to Britain, because it fears they will be radicalised there. If that does not trigger some soul-searching in Europe, I don't know what will. Because the UAE's point is precisely this. You make a fatal mistake if you only start caring about Islamism once someone picks up a weapon. The ideological process may have started years earlier. The UAE's foreign minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, has said: "Daesh, Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups have fed off a wider current of extremist ideas." He pointed specifically at political Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which in his view have spent decades spreading those narratives. He called them "backward-looking". And said they "reject open, pluralistic societies." This is a Muslim foreign minister saying it. And there is something else I want to make very clear! THE UAE IS NOT THE WEST. It is not Europe. It is not a Western liberal democracy. It is a Muslim, Arab country with a different culture, a different form of government and different traditions. And there are aspects of the UAE's political system and human rights record that we would never accept in a Western democracy. This is not to be romanticised. But the UAE has fought political Islamism for decades, an ideology its leadership believes has undermined and destabilised the Middle East. And which they now openly warn is seeking influence in Europe and the rest of the Western world. Their foreign minister has spoken about the need to show that you can be "modern, Arab and Muslim." That distinction is one Europe desperately needs to understand. You can be a Muslim and still reject political Islam, extremism, antisemitism and religious intolerance. And notice one more thing. THE VIEW OF WOMEN IS PART OF THAT FIGHT. Abdullah bin Zayed has directly criticised Islamist ideologies for their "denigration of women's role in society." The UAE has not just talked about it. The country has made women's education, economic participation and leadership official state policy. Women are to be educated. They are to work. They are to be able to start businesses. They are to take part economically and politically. And they are to sit at the table where decisions are made. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, ruler of Dubai and the UAE's vice president and prime minister, established the UAE Gender Balance Council with the stated aim of reducing the gender gap and strengthening women's participation in leadership and decision making. And the UAE's president, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, MBZ, leads a Muslim country that has made religious coexistence part of its national story. In Abu Dhabi, a mosque, a church and a synagogue stand side by side in the Abrahamic Family House. Think about that contrast. A Muslim country is saying: Keep Islam. Fight Islamism. Let women study, work and lead. Let Christians be Christians. Let Jews be Jews. And fight the political and religious movements that want to replace pluralism with their own ideology. And yes. That includes the people who support, legitimise and clear the path for those movements while believing they are defending tolerance and diversity. Including when they end up working against the very Western values, freedom, equality, democracy and religious liberty, that gave them the opportunity to do so in the first place. History has an old term for people who end up serving an ideology whose actual goals they do not share: "Useful idiots." They do not have to be Islamists themselves. That is the whole point. They only have to be useful to those who are. And this is what Europe has to learn to separate: Islam is a religion. Islamism is a political ideology. And Islamist extremism is not "diversity". You can defend Muslims' full right to believe and practise their faith, and at the same time say a resounding NO to movements that want to use religion for political power, parallel societies, extremism, or the gradual erosion of the society that gave them the freedom to be here. Tolerance does not mean tolerating intolerance until it has grown strong enough to turn on you. When a Muslim country pulls its state scholarships away from British universities out of fear of Islamist radicalisation, while parts of Europe are still afraid to even name the problem, the question is no longer whether there is a problem. The question is who understood the seriousness of it. And right now, it isn't us!