Category Archives: UK

Mad Mel on the rise of the BNP

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Melanie Phillips Jihad in BritainIn this week’s Spectator Mad Melanie Phillips has another go at explaining the factors behind the rise of the BNP.

And, wouldn’t you know it, these include “uncontrolled immigration, multiculturalism, the loss to the EU of Britain’s ability to govern itself. Most toxic of all, however, is the threat from Islamic supremacism and the concern of the disenfranchised white voters that the political establishment is supinely going along with the progressive Islamisation of Britain.”

As we’ve pointed out in the past, Phillips’ analysis of the BNP’s political appeal always omits one major contributory factor, namely the legitimisation of their hysterical anti-Muslim propaganda by “mainstream” right-wing journalists like Phillips herself.

See also “Mel P rationalises the BNP’s anti-Muslim prejudice”, ENGAGE, 23 October 2009

Woman banned from college for wearing veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Muslim student has been banned from enrolling at a college because she refused to remove her burkha [sic – they presumably mean niqab]. Shawana Bilqes, 18, wanted to wear the garment – which covers her body and face, leaving only her eyes visible – during lessons. But staff at Burnley College refused to enrol her, claiming the burkha was a barrier to “safety and communication”. In a strongly worded statement, the college said “unimpeded” face to face contact between teachers and students was vital.

Miss Bilqes, who wanted to study an access course for a diploma, has now been forced to abandon her plans and is looking elsewhere to complete her studies.

Yesterday she said: “It is my choice to wear the veil. I live around the corner from the college in an area where there are so many practising Muslims. I tried to compromise but they wouldn’t. The college sent me a letter to say I could continue with my course if I stopped wearing the veil. We are in the 21st century and we get people from all walks of life. I’m in the police cadets as well and yet it’s not a problem wearing the veil there.”

Daily Mail, 24 October 2009

See also Burnley Express, 21 October 2009

Douglas Murray savages Ed Husain

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Last week the Guardian revealed that Ed Husain, co-director of the government-funded thinktank the Quilliam Foundation (QF), believes that spying on British Muslims who are ‘not committing terrorist offences’ is ‘good and right’. He has expressed some pretty extreme views in the past, but this is beyond anything that anyone who believes in liberal democracy could extol….

“QF subsequently issued a press release and its other director, Maajid Nawaz, wrote an article of strange double-speak proclaiming that QF does not in fact support ‘mass spying’ nor ‘a police state’. Well here is how his co-director described the Prevent strategy that funds QF. ‘A government initiative backed by millions of pounds. It’s got access to tens of thousands of people’s emails, phone numbers, etc etc. Isn’t the government going to use it? Of course it is. And it should use it.’

“These statements strike me as quite appallingly illiberal: wrong in principle because the police should not investigate innocent people and very obviously damaging in practice. However, Nawaz has clearly decided that the best way to deal with the authoritarian pronouncements of his co-director is to divert attention under the belief that contradiction is better than retraction….

“Husain said that ‘It would be morally wrong of a taxpayer-funded programme designed to prevent terrorism if it was not designed to gather intelligence in order to stop that terrorism from happening.’… Unless a crime has been committed or is about to be committed there is no reason why any innocent person should be reported to the police. Husain, in particular, ought to know the difference between a police state – especially since his co-director was until recently in such a state’s prisons – and a developed liberal democracy….

“QF is currently cosying up to the Conservative party to ensure its role under the next government. It would not be a bad thing if that party’s first cost-cutting exercise was to stop funding an organisation that has come to represent the toxic juncture at which intense personal ambition and government propaganda meet.”

Douglas Murray at Comment is Free, 23 October 2009

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‘Jack Straw started all this’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Three years ago this month Jack Straw argued his case for urging Muslim women who attend his MP’s surgery to remove their niqab. He said that he wanted to start a debate. In this, at least, he was successful.

“The French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy said ‘the veil is an invitation to rape’; the Daily Mail columnist Allison Pearson said women who wear ‘nose bags on their faces … have no place on British streets’; the then shadow home secretary David Davis argued that Muslims were encouraging voluntary apartheid.

“And 16-year-old Daniel Coine insisted he felt threatened: ‘I’d go further than Jack Straw and say they should all take off their veils. You need to see people face to face. It’s weird not knowing who it is you’re passing in the street, specially late at night when someone might jump you.’

“And so Muslim women passed, in the public imagination, from being actually among the group most likely to be racially attacked to ostensibly being a primary cause of social strife – roaming the land in search of white teenagers to physically harass.”

Gary Younge in the Guardian, 22 October 2009

Sunday Express defends ‘Britishness’ against the Muslim hordes

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Morris dancers“If global warming is happening fast, the transformation of Britain into a foreign land is occurring more alarmingly swiftly still. Last week the Office for National Statistics revealed that, since 2002, approximately 515 migrants have been arriving here every single day….

“Old cinemas that are not carpet warehouses are overflow mosques…. People bob past in national costume – the women trussed up in black parachutes, to show they are men’s possessions, and the men themselves more heavily bearded than the holy warriors of the Khyber Pass…. It’s like being abroad.

“Instead of multiculturalism leading to acceptance of diversity, the liberal illusion has fostered intolerance and self-righteousness, particularly among younger Muslims who have no sense of Britishness and cling to their religious identity instead.

“So devout have the checkout staff at branches of Sainsbury’s become that they are refusing to handle customers’ beer and wine, as drink is offensive to Allah. Trainee doctors, too, are declining to attend lectures on liver diseases as they are ‘so opposed to the consumption of alcohol they don’t want to learn anything about it’, according to a spokesman at the British Medical Association. They also boycott courses on sexually transmitted ailments and won’t examine ‘patients of a particular gender’ – that is, women. Boots allow Muslim pharmacists not to dispense the Pill ‘for ethical reasons’….

“While not in the same league as blowing up Tube trains, there is still the same philosophy behind flinching from condoms and Special Brew – such goods are the mark of the Infidel….

“Why do we always cave in? The managers at Sainsbury’s and Boots and the nervous medical authorities? Why have our civilised standards and sense of moderation vanished? … We resisted the Nazis in 1940, after Dunkirk. We wouldn’t now. Today’s politicians with their egalitarian humbug would let everybody in, regardless of the fact that we have far too large a population for a tiny island – with the consequent pollution, crime and the destruction of the landscape for cheap housing estates…..

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Progress apologises to Sir Iqbal

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sir Iqbal Sacranie: Correction and Apology

On the 21st August 2009 Progress published an article titled “It’s time to end the cultural appeasement“. This article suggested that Sir Iqbal Sacranie had never been elected to “anything, not even a parish council”. Sir Iqbal has contacted us through his lawyers, Carter-Ruck, and asked us to point out that in fact he:

“was elected as the founding Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), when it was established in 1997. He was re-elected to the role twice in 2002 and 2003 by the 60 or so elected members making up the Central Working Committee. Under the MCB’s constitution, only elected members of the Central Working Committee can assume the role of Secretary General, so our client had first to be elected to this committee by the General Assembly (consisting of delegates from all the affiliates of the MCB, which is in the region of 500 national, regional and local bodies).

“Sir Iqbal has also been elected to various other positions. By way of example only, he was elected to his position as Chairman of Muslim Aid in 2008, he was elected to the position of Chair of the Executive Committee of Memon Association UK, he was elected to the position of Deputy President of World Memon Organisation, and he was elected to his position as Chair of the Management Committee of Balham Mosque and Tooting Islamic Centre.”

We have amended the article, and would like to apologise to Sir Iqbal Sacranie for the offence caused.

Progress Online, 21 October 2009

Groom at centre of Fitzpatrick wedding row joins Respect

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Groom joins RespectThe groom at the centre of the storm over Muslim weddings, Bodrul Islam, spoke out about his anger at MP Jim Fitzpatrick.

“He likened my wedding to the racial segregation, the apartheid, of the Deep South. I am disgusted at this degenerate politics and these insults,” said Mr Islam. “I am announcing today that I am joining the Respect Party. It is the only party standing up against racism and prejudice. And I am pledging my support for George Galloway as he seeks to replace Jim Fitzpatrick as the MP for Poplar and Limehouse.”

Mr Islam continued, “Neither I nor my wife are particularly traditional in our attitudes but we wanted to show respect to our elders and our parents who expect that men and women should be separated in the wedding ceremony. We did everything we could to accommodate Mr Fitzpatrick when we heard he had left the wedding and we were given to understand he was not upset. Imagine our dismay when days later he issued a condemnatory press release and followed it up with a press conference saying he wanted to outlaw what he likes to call segregation at weddings”.

George Galloway and Councillor Abjol Miah welcomed Mr Islam to the party, George thanked him for his pledge of support and Councillor Miah invited him to put himself forward as a candidate for Respect in the forthcoming council elections.

George Galloway went on to attack Fitzpatrick for dangerously pandering to prejudice. “Fitzpatrick is fanning the flames of hate, as the Advertiser correctly described it. He says he wants to outlaw ‘forced’ segregation. But no-one is forcing anyone to go to a wedding. The law he proposes would in fact make weddings where the sexes are separated illegal and would also probably lead to many other events being made illegal, such as women only swimming. The proposal is both dangerous and absurd.”

Asian Image, 21 October 2009

See also Respect news report, 20 October 2009

Man charged with arson attack on Sunderland mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A man from Peterborough accused of a late-night petrol attack on a mosque in Sunderland has been remanded in custody. Gerald Davies (53), of Palmerston Road, Peterborough, appeared before Sunderland Magistrates’ Court yesterday after an incident in the early hours of Friday.

He was charged with attempting to damage by fire the mosque in Chester Road, Sunderland, with intent to endanger the lives of members of the Muslim community. Prosecutor Nicci Horton told the court that the offence was so serious it could only be dealt with at Newcastle Crown Court.

Davies was not asked to enter a plea to the charge and spoke only to confirm his name and address during the hearing.

Miss Horton outlined the case to the court alleging that petrol was thrown on the building which was empty at the time.

Defence solicitor Heidi Surtees made no bail application and Davies was remanded in custody until a hearing at Newcastle Crown Court on November 2.

Speaking before the hearing, Chief Superintendent Dave Pryer from Northumbria Police said: “I would like to thank members of the public for their help. Sunderland is a thriving diverse community and we have an excellent relationship with all of our community and will continue to build on this.”

Peterborough Today, 20 October 2009

Hindu groups slam BNP claims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Hindu groups across the country have united to slam claims made by BNP leader Nick Griffin that British Hindus support the policies of the BNP. In a joint statement the Hindu Council UK, National Council of Hindu Temples and City Hindus Network said they were against what the BNP stood for.

Mr Griffin made his claims during an interview on Sky News’ Sunday Live with Adam Boulton. The BNP leader was speaking after pledging to lift a bar on non-whites joining the party in response to court action by The Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Speaking to Adam Boulton he claimed: “A large number of the settled ethnic minority population, Sikhs, Hindus and so on, are actually very much in favour of the British National Party’s stance about stopping any further immigration.”

The claim, however, was denied. In a joint statement, Dr Rao, Chair of the Hindu Council UK, Sanjay Jagatia, General Secretary of the National Council of Hindu Temples, and Dhruv Patel, Chair of the City Hindus Network hit back at Mr Griffin.

“The claim made by Nick Griffin that Hindus back BNP is totally without foundation,” the statement said. “Hindu Council UK, the National Council of Hindu Temples and City Hindus Network have had no contact with the BNP and as a peaceful law abiding community we do not agree with Nick Griffin’s views or policies. We would also like to reiterate that we totally condemn all forms racism and religious intolerance.”

The Asian Today, 20 October 2009

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