Extreme Islamism - like all political movements - requires cash. Those who pay extreme Islamists are at best helping to further bigoted, Flintstone ideas and, at worst, they are directly funding Islamist terrorism. Since Islamists often show two faces to get what they want (in an uneducated misinterpretation, they justify this as taqiyya) a good lesson is to never pay an Islamist, whether you think he or she is an extremist or not. Not a penny.

Remember that in Britain extreme Islamists are in charge of numerous charities and "places of religious worship". Even if they stick a charity registration number under your nose or some cause that in some way pulls at your heart strings you are better off donating to some globally represented NGO like Oxfam or the Red Cross.

A growing number of people are rightly disgusted at the state of the Charity Commission and how, in spite of some recent improvements under new management, it continues to fail the British people - handing out charity numbers to proven extremists without checking.

A short walk from Victoria station - at 23, Crawford Street - a charity called BEST operates (Charity Number 1014888). BEST stands for British Educational Support Trust - as valid a use of the word "British" as the similarly racist and extremist British National Party. Charity Number 1014888 used to be called RIHS (Revival of Islamic Heritage Society, headquartered in Kuwait). Go inside 23 Crawford Street and - sitting amongst a collection of Islamic books - you'll find piles of free RIHS leaflets dotted around, mostly written in Arabic.

Recent BEST charity accounts have carelessly been written on RIHS letterheads in spite of the charity's attempts to pretend it is nothing to do with RIHS anymore. The Charity Commission's point of contact with BEST is a bigot by the name of Sirag Elnour, who is a well-known Islamist. So why the name change for 1014888?

RIHS is a banned organisation across many UN member states. The US Treasury and Bank of England froze its accounts post-911, it has been behind dozens of bombings in Bangladesh (which maimed and slaughtered scores of innocent civilians) and was a crucial funder and organiser of mujahideen in the Yugoslav wars in the 1990's. Its Pakistan office was run by Abd al-Muhsin al-Libi - a man better known as an Al Qaeda facilitator. Al-Libi provided Osama bin Laden and his associates with facilities in Peshawar, and personally carried money and messages on behalf of Osama bin Laden.

BEST still operates in the UK because the Charity Commission investigative unit in Liverpool is under-funded and lacks the expertise to comprehend the scale of abuse by Islamist (and other) extremist organisations of charity status going on in Britain. BEST - amongst other activities - runs camps for young British Muslims. There is still a serious lack of linkage between the Charity Commission and over-stretched national security agencies.

What the Charity Commission really needs to do is start all over again - make all charities re-apply for charity status and stop giving the benefit of any doubt. This would be a huge and disruptive process but one - as with the recent, mostly successful reclassification of student visa-valid colleges - that would be of great benefit to the British people and the prevention of Islamist and other extremism. To weed out the existing charities run by radicals would be an extremely difficult undertaking.

Instead we are left with sections of the Charity Commission set up to help Muslim charities run by Muslims who are proven Islamists themselves. Just as proven Islamists have been involved in crucial State posts in departments as sensitive as Immigration; once again we are left with abusers handing out the candy.

Whilst people can boycott charities, most charities will feel no effect from a boycott. A BEST or White Pigeon (one of several LTTE UK charity fronts) are funded by those from within extremist enclaves where funding these charities is obligatory or enviable. Such charities make use of their charity tax status to make the most of their funds, to garner apparent respectability to hide their sinister aims. Unfortunately the average Briton will make no difference by boycotting them, as these charities do not bother with street collections, stick to their own Diaspora and try to keep under the radar as much as possible.

But what if a British High Street bank is directly funding an extremist organisation? Or what if a British High Street bank is letting its accounts be used by an extremist organisation? People could surely boycott these banks? At least cause them enough deserved distress to change their mind and re-allocate their funding?

In the case of the Tamil Tigers' White Pigeon charity, National Westminster Bank happened to run its bank accounts. But at least NatWest do not advertise on LTTE forums or legitimise Tamil Tiger calls for murder and a return to terrorism across LTTE publications and sites.

HSBC, however, has had a regular advertising spot on the extremist Islamist online forum Ummah.com for a while now, where the likes of RIHS (not bothering to disguise itself with its new name BEST) advertise events and fundraisers. HSBC helps keep Ummah.com afloat by paying for a banner on the Ummah forum, alongside other household names like The Children's Mutual (advertising its Sharia baby bond).

HSBC - Britain's biggest bank with over 1500 branches throughout England & Wales - donates cash to a collection of excellent charities including Help for Heroes, Oxfam and the Red Cross. HSBC customers in the UK include many servicemen and women who are serving / who have recently served in Afghanistan (and Iraq).  

Ummah.com (not set up as a charity yet) has run a section dedicated to "Crusader Deaths" where dead servicemen and their families are poked fun at and the Taliban congratulated for their killing of non-believers (referred to as "dirty kuffar").

The site (open to all of whatever age) houses extremist lectures by the likes of Sheikh Anwar Al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni scholar who was banned from addressing a meeting in London by video link in August because he is accused of supporting attacks on British troops and backing terrorist organizations. Al-Awlaki is said to be the inspirer of the Muslim US Major Nidal Malik Hasan who recently massacred thirteen US soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas.

On Ummah.com there are videos calling for jihad. Several areas call for the death of homosexuals and lesbians - same sex relationships described as "horrifying behaviour" while Muslims who engage in homosexual acts are described as individuals "past out of Islam" who "deserve to burn to death".