Muslim Sharia law would undermine society if it was introduced in Britain, Conservative leader David Cameron said today. Mr Cameron said it would in fact lead to a “legal apartheid”. He added that “state multiculturalism” was also the wrong way to tackle integration.

He said: “I don’t believe that by introducing Sharia law, we will make Muslims somehow feel more British – more content with life here and more happy to work for a common good.

“In my view the opposite is the case: I think it would be to head in the wrong direction. The reality is that the introduction of Sharia law for Muslims is actually the logical endpoint of the now discredited doctrine of state multiculturalism instituting, quite literally, a legal apartheid to entrench what is the cultural apartheid in too many parts of our country.

“This wouldn’t strengthen society – it would undermine it. It would alienate other communities who would resent this preferential treatment. It would provide succour to the separatists who want to isolate and divide communities from the mainstream. And it would – crucially – weaken, destabilise and demoralise those Muslims who embrace liberal values and desperately want to integrate fully in British society.”

Speaking alongside Trevor Phillips, the chairman of Equality and Human Rights Commission, Mr Cameron attacked the Government’s idea of multiculturalism. He said:

“I believe that state multiculturalism is a wrong-headed doctrine that has had disastrous results. It has fostered difference between communities. And it has stopped us from strengthening our collective identity. Indeed, it has deliberately weakened it. By concentrating on defining the various cultures that have come to call Britain home, we have forgotten to define the most important one: our own. So we now have a situation where the children of first-generation immigrants – children, let us remember, who have been born and raised here – feel more divorced from life in Britain than their parents.”

Daily Telegraph, 26 February 2008

See also the Guardian, 26 February 2008

Full text of Cameron’s speech here

The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, who received death threats for airing his views on Islamic issues, has vowed that he will continue to speak out.

His claim that Islamic extremism has turned some parts of Britain into “no-go” areas for non-Muslims led to fierce rows between political and religious leaders over the impact of multiculturalism on this country.

Yet, in his first interview since the sinister calls were made to his home, the Bishop of Rochester remains steadfastly defiant. He will not be silenced. “I believe people should not be prevented from speaking out,” he says. “The issue had to be raised. There are times when Christian leaders have to speak out.”

He wishes the Church would be more vocal on issues of multiculturalism and sharia law. He agrees with Dr Williams in supporting the right of Muslims to observe their religious freedom, but is strongly opposed to any idea of Islamic law being recognised within the British legal system.

“People of every faith should be free within the law to follow what their spiritual leaders direct them to, but that’s very different from saying their structures should replace that of the English legal system because there would be huge conflicts.” In particular, he points to polygamy, women’s rights and freedom of belief as areas in sharia law that would undermine equality.

There is a danger that the archbishop’s remarks could become a reality unless Britain quickly regains a sense of its Christian heritage. “Do the British people really want to lose that rooting in the Christian faith that has given them everything they cherish – art, literature, architecture, institutions, the monarchy, their value system, their laws?”

Sunday Telegraph, 24 February 2008

Britain has become a “soft touch” for home grown terrorists because ministers have failed to tackle immigrant communities that refuse to integrate, warns a report released today.

The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a body of the country’s leading military and diplomatic figures, says the loss of British values and national identity caused by “flabby and bogus” Government thinking has made the country vulnerable to attack from Islamic extremists.

“The UK presents itself as a target, as a fragmenting, post-Christian society,” the report says, and is “increasingly divided” on its history, national aims, values and political identity. “That fragmentation is worsened by the firm self-image of those elements within it who refuse to integrate.”

The report places most of the blame for this on a “lack of leadership from the majority, which, in misplaced deference to ‘multiculturalism’, failed to lay down the line to immigrant communities, thus undercutting those within them trying to fight extremism. The country’s lack of self-confidence is in stark contrast to the implacability of its Islamist terrorist enemy, within and without. We look like a soft touch. We are indeed a soft touch, from within and without.”

Daily Telegraph, 15 February 2008

See also Daily Mail, 15 February 2008

The Bishop of Rochester’s article in The Sunday Telegraph last month has reignited the row over multiculturalism. The doctrine was unquestioned for nearly three decades. But the bombings of July 2005, when home-grown Muslim suicide attackers killed dozens of London commuters, led many to blame multiculturalism for causing deep divisions in Britain.

The attacks shone a light into Britain’s “separate” and “closed” communities, where many ethnic and religious groups led “parallel lives”, cut off from mainstream society and where values were increasingly in conflict with those of the host country. A consensus has emerged that the multiculturalism experiment was necessary, but that its time is over.

Sunday Telegraph, 3 February 2008