Russell Brand Says We Are All To Blame For The Escalating Crisis In Iraq

Russell Brand has said we only have ourselves to blame for "desperate" young Britons travelling to Iraq and Syria to fight with Islamic State (IS) militants.

In a fierce attack against the British Government, Brand dissected David Cameron's speech on new laws to crack down on terror suspects.

The Prime Minister last week warned that extremism in Iraq and Syria poses a greater danger to Britain than al Qaeda.

But, in the latest video of his YouTube series 'The Trews', Brand argued that the British government is using IS, formerly known as ISIS, as an excuse to impose terror measure on the "domestic population."

"The threat of ISIS is conceptual and abstract," Brand said, before adding "unless you're in Syria."

In London, Brand says "the threat of David Cameron however, is real."

Referring to the escalating crisis in Iraq, Brand said: "We've caused this problem, make no bones about it."

He argued that attitudes in Britain towards Muslim youth are to blame for the influx of young men and women leaving the UK to join extremists abroad.

"What frame of mind would I have to be in to leave my house in smacking East London and go, 'Right, I'm going to the desert to kill people,'" he said.

"You'd have to take away my material comfort, my sense of security, my sense of connection to the country, my sense of togetherness - all of those things would have to be stripped away from me," Brand says.

The fact that there are so many "desperate people, so many alienated people" indicates that we have to build a more "coalescent, inclusive, communicative and bonded society here in Britain," the comedian said.

"So people don't think 'I want to go to Syria and cut people's heads off, I like it here.'"

Unless these attitudes change, he said, terrorism will continue.

Brand added that he could see why IS would be "appealing" for "the lad" that shockingly murdered the American journalist James Foley.

"He went from being a disenfranchised youth in east London with no voice, no cultural identity worth having other than one of being under constant suspicion and condemnation to directly addressing the President of the United States," Brand said.

Brand said not to presume that IS are "madly evil," arguing instead that "terrorism is the nuclear bomb of the disenfranchised."

The more we bomb these regions, the more "we create these problems for ourselves in the future," he said.

Last week Cameron said his top priority is to keep the people of Britain safe. But Cameron's only concern, Brand says, is to remain Prime Minister.

"If he says anything other than that, he's lying," the comedian added.

Brand argued that, instead of focusing on the current crisis in Iraq, Cameron must "put controls on energy companies to counteract a climate change crisis, stop spending money on Trident… cars, alcohol and cigarettes are killing people everyday - so deal with those things first."

"I don't accept people who have lived in a milieu of constant cosseting and privilege like David Cameron coming on my TV set and saying British working class people have got to go over there and die, or that there's justification for more Iraqi or Syrian people dying or Muslim people in Britain who feel so disenfranchised that they go over there."

It was on youtube.

Brand is about as relevant as Pickering, Herbie...