A man in black, his face masked, launches a drone from a field in the beautiful Suffolk countryside.

Next to him, a second mysterious and camouflaged figure waves a large St George’s flag, while others in their group creep through undergrowth to observe the behaviour of almost 15,000 Muslims attending a vast event on a handsome rural estate.

The drone’s video and still images, captured by a fledgling Right-wing outfit calling itself British Security Project, were posted on social media with the provocative title: ‘We won’t stop till they do.’

The innocuous footage of the festival captured by the volunteers was uploaded to the sound of rock anthem Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes. It showed men wearing traditional robes walking between long rows of tents at the British ‘Ijtema’ (Arabic for ‘gathering’) held two weekends ago at the magnificent Shrubland Hall.

British Security Project volunteers had chosen to ‘monitor’ the event organised by the ultra-orthodox Islamic sect Tablighi Jamaat – a movement banned in multiple countries, whose European headquarters is a towering ‘mega mosque’ in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire.

Within 24 hours of the drone being flown, Counter Terrorism officers had swooped on British Security Project over an alleged ‘Right-wing terror threat’.

No fewer than 12 arrests dramatically followed over July 12 and July 13 as addresses were raided across the country, from Surrey to Manchester, as a well-briefed BBC was quick to report.

It breathlessly revealed that eight men had been ‘detained under the Terrorism Act 2000’, with three others on suspicion of conspiracy to murder, while a woman was questioned over assisting an offender.

The British 'Ijtema' (Arabic for ‘gathering’) was organised by the ultra-orthodox Islamic sect Tablighi Jamaat

Drone footage from the festival, which had almost 15,000 Muslims in attendance, shows men wearing traditional robes walking between long rows of tents

It sounded very serious – all the more so when the Ijtema was closed down early on Sunday, July 12 to ‘safeguard’ those attending. Rifle-toting anti-terror officers were positioned around nearby roads to ensure the security of the faithful making their way home.

After the weekend, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood stood in the House of Commons to praise in the strongest terms the rapid and heavy police response, saying officers had ‘undoubtedly saved lives’. In a statement online, she added categorically that the Ijtema had ended early ‘after a credible extreme Right-wing terrorism-related threat to the lives of those present’.

Mahmood went on: ‘I thank Suffolk Police, Counter Terrorism Policing and the organisers for their swift and effective response that undoubtably [sic] saved lives... I know this is deeply concerning news for British Muslims. We must stand against hatred.’

Outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer rushed to echo her words, saying: ‘Thanks to quick action by the police, no one was hurt. I will not tolerate any attacks on our Muslim communities or any form of anti-Muslim hatred.’

Andy Burnham, moments from being anointed PM himself, joined in, saying: ‘This is appalling. Hatred against Muslims has no place in our country. I am determined to stamp it out.’

All the awesome force of the British state had been used. The 12 arrested – three of whom, it later emerged, were not linked to the British Security Project at all – were thrown into cells where some remained for a full six days, far longer than most suspects are held. Others allege their arrests were exceptionally heavy-handed, with their frightened children watching as armed terror police burst in through their front doors.

The gathering was held in the magnificent Shrubland Hall in the Suffolk countryside, even though the group's headquarters is a towering mosque in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire

A fledgling Right-wing outfit, known as the British Security Project, chose to monitor the event using a drone, but Counter Terrorism officers pounced on them within 24 hours

Yet within days, all terrorism claims were dropped. ‘We have made extensive inquiries but at this time have found no evidence... linked to the alleged threat,’ was how Commander Helen Flanagan, head of Counter Terrorism Policing London, put it in a terse statement on July 18.

It must be stated clearly that this week one of the group, Darren Brown, was given a six-month suspended sentence at Reading magistrates’ court after pleading guilty to weapons offences. Brown had been stopped driving his white Ford Transit van in Basildon, Essex, and was found to have a stun gun and extendable baton inside his vehicle, plus a second baton at home.

Clearly, it is right that he was punished for this offence. But the fact remains that all terror charges against British Security Project have been dropped – and the police response looks to have been extremely severe, the Labour politicians’ haste to cry ‘terrorism’ distinctly knee-jerk.

Needless to say, no apology has come from those police or Labour figures who rushed to allege that some kind of far-Right 9/11 was only narrowly avoided. So what happened here?

Remember, this ugly episode was playing out at the very moment British emotions were running high over the apparently haphazard investigation into the brutal slaying of 78-year-old Ann Widdecombe, a former Conservative immigration minister and, latterly, spokesman for Nigel Farage’s Reform party.

After her battered body was found in a pool of blood in her Devon kitchen at 11.40am on Thursday, July 9, first the local police force were quick to say that her murder was likely not linked to terror or politically motivated. Instead, there were implications that it might have been a robbery gone wrong.

Then Reform politicians demanded a fresh look at Ms Widdecombe’s death. Terror police were drafted in, resulting in the arrest of a man, initially for murder and, two days later, further ‘on suspicion of commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism’. He has since been charged with murder. At the same time Mahmood made a Commons statement about Ms Widdecombe, allegedly struck over the head with a hammer 21 times.

The Home Secretary said: ‘The police now have a suspect in custody: a 28-year-old White British man.’ She added sternly: ‘The police have cautioned against speculating in this case.’

This was the very same day Mahmood was rushing to claim, in her own ill-lettered phrasing, that ‘lives were undoubtably saved’ at what seems in fact to have been a complete non-event at the mass Islamic gathering. She further baselessly claimed, in inflammatory language, that there was ‘a credible extreme Right-wing terrorism-related threat to the lives of those present’.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood praised the rapid and heavy police response, saying officers had ‘undoubtedly saved lives’ after an 'extreme Right-wing terrorism-related threat'

All terror charges against British Security Project have been dropped, but no apology has come from the Labour figures who were so quick to cry ‘terrorism’. (Pictured: BSP's drone footage)

Questions are now understandably mounting about why the Labour government’s most senior figures, including two existing or former Prime Ministers and the Home Secretary herself, were so quick to state that a few people monitoring an Islamic festival were about to commit some horrifying atrocity – while at the same time were sharply ordering the public not to speculate about the circumstances surrounding Ms Widdecombe’s death, or whether there might have been a political or terror motive behind her killing.

As we await the trial of 28-year-old Joshua Kerry, the Rotherham man charged with murdering Ms Widdecombe (he has been denied bail and remanded in custody), the Daily Mail has looked into the individuals behind British Security Project. Its website states that it is ‘a professional security firm in the UK devoted to enhancing public safety amid increasing concerns about domestic terrorism and violence’.

It adds that it is also ‘a Christian and Catholic group with goals to safeguard religious sites’, claiming that some ‘200 arson attacks on churches and over 9,000 recorded crimes including arson, vandalism and damage [have been] reported in a three-year period’.

The outfit, which claims to have some 400 members, has backed petitions in support of Henry Nowak, the Southampton teenager who bled to death in police handcuffs after being falsely accused of ‘racism’ by his Sikh murderer. It has also launched anti-migrant protests at Dover, where the illegal arrival of thousands of predominantly Muslim males from the Third World continues to cause local fury.

Although it appears rather amateurish, British Security Project this week put out a succinct statement calmly objecting to its treatment by the authorities. After all terrorism charges against its members had been dropped, the group said: ‘A public accusation can travel faster than a correction. Once a group is... labelled as “far-Right terrorists”, that wording can harden into accepted truth, even when the underlying facts are disputed or incomplete.’

It went on: ‘The wrongful accusation of nine British Security Project volunteers on serious charges such as conspiracy to commit terrorism, conspiracy to murder and threats to kill has raised urgent questions about legal protections and accountability... the reckless remarks by politicians such as Keir Starmer and Shabana Mahmood have intensified these risks [to physical safety and reputational harm]’. The group is now apparently considering legal action.

And what of Tablighi Jamaat? With up to 100 million followers across 180 countries, the hardline sect, founded in India in 1926, is now one of the largest in the world. It instructs its adherents to replicate the life of Mohammed to the tiniest degree, even eschewing beds and toothbrushes.

The sect is banned in Saudi Arabia, where ministers have declared it a ‘danger to society’ and ‘one of the gateways to terrorism’. Ditto in Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, which all have reason to be concerned about a rising tide of Islamism, have all declared the organisation a threat to the secular life of their citizens. But not in Britain, where this controversial movement is welcome to rent out our most beautiful stately homes for its private events.

Mohammad Sidique Khan, orchestrator of the 7/7 London suicide bombings in 2005, which killed 52 people in train and Tube explosions, had reportedly attended the giant mosque at Tablighi Jamaat’s European HQ in his home town of Dewsbury.

One of the sect’s leading advocates, self-styled ‘scholar’ Ebrahim Rangooni – who has lived in Britain – has proclaimed that the movement’s purpose is to rescue Muslims ‘from the culture and civilisation of the Jews, the Christians and [other] enemies of Islam’.

Ishaq Patel, its first UK ‘amir’ (leader), is said to have been on a pilgrimage in Mecca when he was given a long-term mission by the group’s then-chief to win ‘the whole of Britain to Islam’.

So why the heavy-handed police raids? However unnerving it might have been for some of the event’s attendees to glimpse a drone hovering above them, the fact remains that they were never, thankfully, in any physical danger.

In the meantime, anyone following these events would do well to wonder why the Labour Government’s most senior figures rushed to announce that a non-existent ‘far-Right terror plot’ had been foiled – while urging everyone else to stay silent about the murder of a Right-wing politician.