A Government commission will tour Britain to investigate problems in communities believed most likely to harbour religious extremists, a minister said on Thursday.Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly said the new task force would explore ways to help areas where people are thought to be at risk from the influence of radical religious leaders. The commission would examine tensions over immigration, after the government acknowledged that around 427,000 migrants had arrived from eight former communist states since they joined the EU in 2004.Kelly, who has held a series of meetings with Muslim community leaders, said the Commission on Integration and Cohesion would deliver a report a year from now. It forms part of the government’s response to the threat from homegrown extremism, exposed by the London transport network bombings last July, which killed 52 commuters and the four British Muslim bombers.“I’m determined that it does do something useful and that it’s not another talking shop, that it doesn’t just go round talking to different faith groups and community groups but it actually goes into communities and finds out practically what’s happening on the ground,” Kelly told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.Kelly said it was clear there were ideological challenges within the Islamic faith and a perverted form of the religion was “proving attractive to a certain group of particularly young people in this country.”“I think it is true that in the past people have tended to shy away from some of the difficult issues, and we can’t afford to do that any more. We have to raise our game and embrace the challenges,” Kelly said.
