The Islamic clergy there is of the Wahhabi sect, the most radical branch of Islam and all schools, prison chaplains and mosques are funded by Saudi Arabia, our BFF and back stabber and also the promoter/ financier of the Wahhabi ideology all around the world.
Wahhabis are a small (although somewhat influential) minority among British Muslims. Mainly they are active amongst the Somali community. There are only a handful of Wahhabi mosques (~90), though the Saudis are always trying to increase their influence.
Vast majority of British Muslims hate the Wahhabis' guts. Ordinary Muslims don't like them, and many of the more religious people see Saudi Arabia as even worse than Israel. 'Wahhabi' is basically used an insult these days, actual Wahhabis will call themselves 'Salafi' instead because they are offended by the name. There are very popular conspiracy theories that claim that Wahhabism was a creation of British agents to divide the Muslim world and help topple the Ottoman empire. These theories have many inconsistencies and are groundless, but the fact that they are so popular is more evidence that British Muslims don't support Wahhabism.
British Muslims are ordinary, hard-working people like the rest of us, just trying to live their lives. But the tabloids are not interested in focusing on ordinary people going about their lives. In order to make money they have to offend and make people angry, so they print shock stories like this one every time a Muslim (or any other visible minority) does something evil. Which in turn leads people to generalise. Earlier there was a story posted on these forums about a Sikh mutilating his daughter-in-law because he thought she had an affair with a Muslim. This was also sourced from another far-right tabloid paper (the Express I think). Likely there are large numbers of people making similar generalisations about Sikhs now too.
I am an ex-Muslim who became a Sikh. I was once an impressionable young man, fascinated by politics and very religious, who used internet fora extensively to discuss 'Islamic issues'. Prime recruiting material for extremists, you would have thought. But nobody ever tried to bring me over to that and many people in fact express exasperation at extremists. I was told by a good friend of mine that if they found someone plotting a terror attack, they would hand them over in a heartbeat. In fact, once I had a brief visit from the police as part of their 'PREVENT' anti-terror strategy, because somebody from the Muslim community sent a tip-off that they thought I might be being brainwashed. Politics is kept out of 'normal' Mosques (it is in fact considered a deadly sin to indulge in worldly talk in mosques), from my experience Sikhs are way more political. And since I left Islam, despite the talk of mortal consequences that the newspapers like to repeat, I have never been threatened by anyone from my old faith.
