Three attacks on Britain in as many months is a wake-up call that more must be done prevent the radicalisation of young British Muslims. While the vast majority, like most Muslims around the world, practise Islam peacefully, we need to acknowledge that those who don’t are motivated by a form – a perversion – of Islamic thought. Islamist extremism isn’t just a result of the West’s disastrous foreign policy, although it certainly doesn’t help. You only have to look at the slaughter of Christians in Egypt and minority religions and religious sects, including fellow Muslims, across the Middle East to see that this is nothing less than religious fascism.

An article titled “Why we hate you and want to fight you” in a magazine that IS itself published online, Dabiq, specifically stated that the most important reasons for hating the the West are for its liberal values and simply not being Muslim. It reads, “even if you were to stop bombing us… our primary reason for hating you will not cease to exist until you embrace Islam.”

What we need to look at first to address the terrorist threat, therefore, is not our policy overseas but the factors leading to hatred of liberal values and democracy becoming more widespread.

“In some areas, each generation is more conservative than the last”

There are areas of the country where integration between Muslims and the rest of the community is virtually non-existent. There are ultraconservative imams in British mosques, some supported by Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia, a country Western governments continue to support, preaching hatred of liberal values and of democracy itself. In some areas, each generation is more conservative than the last.

Saying this has nothing to do with Islam is a mistake – it has everything to do with a perversion of Islam that has taken hold of an increasing number of Muslims globally since well before we invaded Iraq. I don’t often agree with George W Bush, but when he said “they [extremists] hate our way of life”, he was entirely correct.

Dealing with this threat needs increased community engagement, action against imams who incite hatred and stronger links between government and the peaceful majority of Muslims who will be key to driving out this scourge of hatred. It is not Islamophobic to acknowledge that Islam is going through a crisis, and we won’t stop this disgusting and dangerous extremist ideology until we recognise that. The challenge is to do that without further isolating our Muslim citizens.

Our police and intelligence services are working tirelessly to prevent attacks and have disrupted five in the past three months, but as the Prime Minister said, this isn’t enough. We have to do more to address the root cause of this ideology. We need moderate imams on side actively preaching against ultraconservative ones both in public and directly with communities, we need Muslim police officers working in areas vulnerable to extremism and, unfortunately, we need to take measures that will inevitably prove unpopular for some.

This includes closer monitoring of extremist content online and the investigation of anyone suspected of travelling for terrorist training. It also means people inside at-risk communities working with police and intelligence services to identify dangerous preachers and those most at risk of crossing the line between devout religiousness and the sort of extremism that leads to tragedies such as those in London and Manchester. Radicalisation is an exponential process. Every single extremist who is off the streets and off the Internet could be dozens more saved from radicalisation and innocent lives saved. And when these extremists are in jail, they need to be kept well away from people they can target within the prison system itself.

We must be careful not to cause more resentment among Muslims, but we must remember that the vast majority of Muslims want to stop this cancer as much as we do - innocent, moderate Muslims are, after all, its worst victims. We can no longer tolerate this intolerant ideology, and that means a fundamental change in how we approach its very root