Zoë

Five years ago today, a teacher from Batley Grammar showed a class a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed. Within days, a hundred Islamists were protesting outside the school gates. Outrageously, the teacher was suspended. The headteacher, Gary Kibble, apologised ‘unequivocally’. It was an astonishing act of appeasement and cowardice. The teacher was then subjected to a campaign of abuse and intimidation, including incitement to violence against him and his family. His kids had to miss school for months. They slept on mattresses in temporary accommodation. An independent probe later cleared him of any wrongdoing whatsoever. Another report likewise found that the school, council and police all ‘totally and utterly failed’ him. Too late - his life was changed forever. Have lessons been learnt from this shameful episode? I fear exactly the same thing would happen today. In fact ‘advice’ has recently been reissued by Labour councils including the one covering Batley, that children’s drawings in art lessons may be seen as ‘idolatrous’ under sharia law. Teachers are even warned that dance lessons could cause parental concerns over ‘physical contact between males and females’. Extremism is being mainstreamed. A climate of threatening and intimidatory harassment is poisoning our institutions. It's antithetical to our democratic way of life. Most of our governing class are simply too spineless to take on Islamists. Look at when I highlighted the chronic failure of integration in parts of Birmingham. I was denounced. And then proven right by West Midlands Police’s admission that violent Islamists living couldn’t be prevented from attacking Jewish football fans. The Police lied and blamed the visiting supporters in an effort to pretend they still had authority in the city. And now look at the reaction of the Prime Minister and much of the media to criticisms of a segregated Iftar in Trafalgar Square. They branded critics racist too. This was despite the Prime Minister himself pulling out of an Iftar in 2021 organised by the very same man, Omar Salha, who arranged this one, apparently because of his Islamist links. We’ve been led by weak hypocrites, who cover up, rather than confront what’s happening. The country is sliding down a dark path as a result. But innocent men and women like the Batley teacher are the greatest victims of extremism, and too many seem intent to forget them. We must defend them and stand up for all those who speak out.

Five years ago today, a teacher from Batley Grammar showed a class a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed. Within days, a hundred Islamists were protesting outside the school gates. Outrageously, the teacher was suspended. The headteacher, Gary Kibble, apologised ‘unequivocally’. It was an astonishing act of appeasement and cowardice. The teacher was then subjected to a campaign of abuse and intimidation, including incitement to violence against him and his family. His kids had to miss school for months. They slept on mattresses in temporary accommodation. An independent probe later cleared him of any wrongdoing whatsoever. Another report likewise found that the school, council and police all ‘totally and utterly failed’ him. Too late - his life was changed forever. Have lessons been learnt from this shameful episode? I fear exactly the same thing would happen today. In fact ‘advice’ has recently been reissued by Labour councils including the one covering Batley, that children’s drawings in art lessons may be seen as ‘idolatrous’ under sharia law. Teachers are even warned that dance lessons could cause parental concerns over ‘physical contact between males and females’. Extremism is being mainstreamed. A climate of threatening and intimidatory harassment is poisoning our institutions. It's antithetical to our democratic way of life. Most of our governing class are simply too spineless to take on Islamists. Look at when I highlighted the chronic failure of integration in parts of Birmingham. I was denounced. And then proven right by West Midlands Police’s admission that violent Islamists living couldn’t be prevented from attacking Jewish football fans. The Police lied and blamed the visiting supporters in an effort to pretend they still had authority in the city. And now look at the reaction of the Prime Minister and much of the media to criticisms of a segregated Iftar in Trafalgar Square. They branded critics racist too. This was despite the Prime Minister himself pulling out of an Iftar in 2021 organised by the very same man, Omar Salha, who arranged this one, apparently because of his Islamist links. We’ve been led by weak hypocrites, who cover up, rather than confront what’s happening. The country is sliding down a dark path as a result. But innocent men and women like the Batley teacher are the greatest victims of extremism, and too many seem intent to forget them. We must defend them and stand up for all those who speak out.

Playwright, Novelist, Writer & Poet — BRENDAN BEHAN — was always on the express train to an early grave, and so it proved to be leaving us 62yrs ago today aged just 42. But he was feted by the likes of Bob Dylan & Arthur Miller. Here he is in 1959.

I dont think being overly emotional is particularly helpful when it comes to matters of the law but for the first time since becoming an MP I am genuinely sad about what parliament has done. I am sad because I know what the consequences will be. I am sad because I know nervous first time parents might give way to doubt and opt out of parenthood and how the reality of that means they'll be denied the greatest gift life will ever give them and instead inherit a life of monstrous guilt. I am sad because, now, healthy babies will be destroyed. I am really sorry that the UK has legalised full term abortion. For what it's worth, I voted NO. I am going to squeeze my children a little tighter and thank the universe a little more than normal this morning. You cannot become unpregnant. You just become the parent of a child you killed. That is the reality of life. We must face it. My babies.

I will not be silenced. Labour are only demonstrating that they cannot see right from wrong. They will not stand up for our way of life. But we will.

Nick Timothy and Nigel Farage are right, and Sadiq Khan and Keir Starmer are wrong. Small groups of people, of whatever religion, praying in public places is fine. And as a Christian country we should allow a special privilege for churches to lead services in our national spaces, like the Palm Sunday celebration that happens in Trafalgar Square. What we don't want is mass ritual observances intended to claim the civic realm for another religion, or assert the domination of another culture over our own Christian traditions. What happens in our national spaces is not neutral. People use Trafalgar Square, for celebrations and demonstrations, to make a point about the kind of country they want us to be. The Palm Sunday pageant reminds us of who we are - not as individuals (many or most of us don't identify as Christians at all) but as a national community, with the roots of our institutions in the ground of the Bible and our most solemn communal moments, from coronations to funerals, mediated through the liturgies of the Church. A mass Adhan held there, or in any town square, is making a different point: that Britain is not a Christian country, and that - inshallah - one day it shall be Muslim. This is unacceptable to the British public and indeed incompatible with our constitution. As ever with these debates, the issue is partly one of kind and partly one of degree. There is an issue with Islam itself as a religion which in most interpretations does not admit of pluralism or freedom of conscience, and therefore is inherently aggrandising, including over territory. But with a bit of confidence and a bit of toleration we could handle that - if it were not for the issue of degree. It is the scale of Islam in Britain, and the ambition of its leaders for greater scale, that makes the problem. The numbers of people who assembled for the adhan in Trafalgar Square, clearly and openly claiming the territory for a faith with no connection (indeed, with strong doctrinal disagreement) with the model of Western liberal democracy that Britain has developed and exported to the world - that is the problem. The numbers, whether everyone there understood it this way or not (and I suspect many did), convey an explicit threat to the foundations of our country. Being relaxed about other people's religion is a good thing, a very British thing. I don't mind modern druids dancing around Stonehenge in my constituency (arguably, though the historicity is tenuous, they have a claim to the place). I don't mind small groups of Hindus or Buddhists or Muslims demonstrating the reality of Britain's religious toleration by worshiping in Trafalgar Square. But let's not kid ourselves about this adhan, or pretend that we're just seeing another harmless expression of Britain's religious diversity. We are seeing an abuse of liberalism, led by people who are not themselves liberal; or - let us imagine they are acting in good faith - who are themselves deceived about what they are doing. It should not happen again. And it would be good to hear the Church of England say so.