David Blunkett: In aftermath of bin Laden’s death, our task is to ensure peace prevails

I don’t know why I switched on the World Service but I was greeted with the immediate expectation of a live broadcast from the White House, with President Barack Obama speaking from Washington.

A moment or two later, his speech confirmed that Osama bin Laden was dead and that US Special Forces had located and killed him in a compound only 30 miles away from the Pakistan capital, Islamabad.

Even at this early hour, it immediately brought back memories of September 11, 2001, and the deep regrets of the loss of life then, and on July 7, 2005, as well as those around the world in Madrid and Bali and elsewhere, who had been killed, whatever their background, whatever their faith or politics, by al-Qaida.

Now, almost 10 years later, bin Laden is dead. But regrettably not those who have slavishly followed him and who have taken into their soul, like a poison, the hated of everything that we stand for in modern democracies and a belief that they are on a holy mission in taking our lives and with it our way of life.

Back in September 2001, I sat in Cabinet, amongst colleagues who, both sombre and thoughtful, realised that we were on a long haul in terms of what it would mean for British policy abroad and for security at home.

The debate immediately began about what the risk really entailed; about how far we needed to go in securing our freedom and protecting ourselves from suicide bombers and from those who would never play “by the rules”.

We had to be aware of the need for proportionality and to listen to those whose main concern was for civil and human rights, but we were painfully aware that the first duty of government is to protect and secure the wellbeing and the lives of the British people and therefore of our nation.

Now we face a different challenge. Bin Laden is gone but the franchised units that exist around the world still threaten our safety and security.

Those units, as we had to recognise in the aftermath of 9/11, have their actions planned well in advance – as was the case in the attacks on US embassies in 1998.

In other words, plans might well already be afoot for actions across the world to be carried out in the event of bin Laden’s death.

That is why we need not to be alarmed, but we must be alert.

It is important, both here and in Pakistan, to work together and to pull together to ensure that whatever the immediate threat might hold, the medium and long-term gains from bin Laden’s death will bring a greater chance of world peace.

That also means helping the Pakistan government to see off those who, like bin Laden, are embedded in their society.

This, as with the instability in the Yemen, is a very major and daunting challenge.

It will take careful diplomacy by the US and those of us in Europe, to ensure that we help rather than hinder that cause.

But at the same time what has been happening in North Africa and the Middle East is extraordinarily encouraging. The little noticed and rarely commented-on unity that is developing within the Palestinian people, between the West Bank and Gaza and between the Palestinian authority and Hamas, can be turned to good effect if pressure can brought to bear both on the Israeli Government and on Hamas (who have made the most outrageous statements) to seize this opportunity.

The world is in flux and very often at these times instability and insecurity can be a worry.

Our task now here in this country and across the world is to reinforce the prospects of good.

In Yorkshire, we have many people whose origins are in South Asia and who will be deeply concerned about the implications for Pakistan.

That is why we need to hear and respond to their concerns.

We also need to recognise that the battle against al-Qaida in Afghanistan and the Pakistan border country is as important as ever, and to grasp this chance of making the world fit for our children and grandchildren to live safely and peacefully for the future.

David Blunkett is the Labour MP for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough. He was Home Secretary at the time of the 9/11 atrocity.