Progressives and Left-wingers in the UK have gone right off “Vox populi, vox Dei”. The Brexit vote was the last straw. Every time I try to think of a first straw – Essex Man voting for Thatcher? – an earlier one pops into my head. Maybe, as we discussed last week, the British Left’s long turn away from reverence for the views of the populace goes right back to the popular conservatism of the Primrose League. In itself, this cessation of reverence is probably a good thing.
Whatsoever, for any cause,
Seeketh to take or give,
Power above or beyond the Laws,
Suffer it not to live!
Holy State or Holy King—
Or Holy People’s Will—
Have no truck with the senseless thing.
Order the guns and kill!
(Relax, delatores, it’s only a poem.) The sort of progressives who have reluctantly had to say, “The people have spoken, the bastards” do fewer terrible things than the sort of progressives who still think their will and the will of the people are one and the same.
But although the voice of the people-in-general is no longer sacred to British progressives, the voices of some people still are. Which people? Being from an ethnic minority certainly helps to gain entrance into the category of persons who must be listened to with reverence, even if enough black and brown-skinned British people have followed in the footsteps of Essex Man (including the Essex MP who leads the Conservative Party) that skin colour no longer works on its own.
However, being an ethnic minority and a socialist is a qualification, and being a Muslim Labour MP lets you say practically anything without fear of contradiction. Why, you can cheerfully propose to reverse one of the proudest achievements of the previous Labour government, and the leader of the present Labour government will spray out deliberately-ambiguous words in response that pointedly do not include the word “No.”
Yesterday’s Hansard records that Tahir Ali, the Labour MP for Birmingham Hall Green and Mosely, put the following Parliamentary Question to the Prime Minister and received the following reply:
Tahir Ali
(Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley) (Lab)Q12. November marks Islamophobia Awareness Month. Last year, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution condemning the desecration of religious texts, including the Koran, despite opposition from the previous Government. Acts of such mindless desecration only serve to fuel division and hatred within our society. Will the Prime Minister commit to introducing measures to prohibit the desecration of all religious texts and the prophets of the Abrahamic religions? (901500)
The Prime Minister
I agree that desecration is awful and should be condemned across the House. We are, as I said before, committed to tackling all forms of hatred and division, including Islamophobia in all its forms.
A video of the exchange can be seen here.
Wikipedia claims that “The common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel were formally abolished in England and Wales in 2008 and Scotland in 2024.” The laws concerned had been dead-letter laws for some time before that, but their final extinction in England and Wales under Gordon Brown’s premiership was actually accomplished by means of an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill 2008 put forward by the Liberal Democrat MP Dr Evan Harris. There was little serious opposition, even from the Established Church. For instance, the Bishop of Oxford said,
“We are representatives of religious, secular, legal and artistic opinion in this country and share the view that the blasphemy offence serves no useful purpose. Yet it allows partisan organisations or well-funded individuals to try to censor broadcasters or intimidate small theatres, print media or publishers.”
That, and more importantly the fact that such laws directly contradict the teaching and example of Jesus, was why I and many other Christians welcomed the end of the offence of blasphemy.
I must admit that when the new age of toleration dawned in 2008, I was expecting a gap before it dusked, if that is a word, of longer than fourteen years in England and Wales and, er, zero years in Scotland.
Because dusked it has. Blasphemy against the Muslim religion is already effectively illegal in the UK, and has been for some time. As reported by the BBC, “A religious studies teacher at Batley Grammar School was forced into hiding in 2021 after showing a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad during a class.” He is still in hiding. There are other similar cases. Defenders of Sir Keir argue that his two-faced waffle in response to Tahir Ali’s question was just him trying to keep two factions of his own party on side – in other words they celebrate his evasiveness as a clever move. But when the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has to resort to deception in order to avoid saying “No, we will not reintroduce a law against blasphemy”, darkness has already fallen.
One of the few, maybe the only, genuine working class demonstrations in 1968 was when the London dockers marched in favour of Enoch Powell.
I feel that after that, the Labour Party decided that it would be advisable to bring in a new demographic which would better reflect their views.
The London dockers used to live in what is now called Tower Hamlets. If you go there now you will not meet a docker, as the docks are long gone. You will do well to meet a white Briton, as the borough is largely Bangladeshi. It is as if the white working class never existed, and I rather think that is much to the taste of the modern Labour Party.
I feel that after that, the Labour Party decided that it would be advisable to bring in a new demographic which would better reflect their views.
The demographic that believes in equality regardless of gender, sexual preference, race, and religion?
The Labour Party has always survived by bribing people with their own money, now that the modern working class has transpired beyond needing welfare, they need someone else happy to exchange handouts for votes.
Which is all very well Runcie, but the Islamic Party of Britain has already got it’s first 5 MP’s in all but name and we know how this tune goes because we’ve seen it in microcosm with Lutfur Rahman in Tower Hamlets.
“I was expecting a gap before it dusked, if that is a word”
Well, it is now Natalie!
I know Tower Hamlets. I studied at Queen Mary College. That was in the ’90s and you could tell then it was turning into Little Mogadishu. The East End was cleansed of Cockneys, Jews and replaced by hipsters and imams. I now live just south of Manchester. I recently wound-up in Bolton “by accident” (my wife may have an A-Level in geography but she can’t read a map). I don’t exactly go along with the idea that the replacement is deliberate, exactly, but I can understand why it has traction.
I shall make one observation. The Islamization of our cities has brought a stupendous number of fried chicken outlets. Whether that is Allah’s plan – to conquer the World with nuggets and bargain buckets – or not is alas beyond my (limited) theological thinking.
To be fair to Tahir Ali he is asking for a clear law which is at least a more honest form of tyranny than bundling “islamophobia” into “racism”.
Good point!
To be fair to Tahir Ali he is asking for a clear law which is at least a more honest form of tyranny than bundling “islamophobia” into “racism”
Far from clear, what exactly does “desecration” mean?
Burning? Burying? Tearing out pages? Waterlogged? Being touched by an unbeliever?
And what is “religious text”? A book, a page, or a word?
And why restrict to ”abrahmic religions”, what about atheists, pagans and polytheists, which I assume he would want to continue “desecration” of as per his own sky fairy’s command?
Runcie,
My knowledge of sharia is that the Abrahamic faiths can have dhimmi status under an Islamic Caliphate. They are just about tolerated – as long as they keep their heads down and pay the jizya. As to Hindus, Buddhists, Animists… They is fucked. So am I. What Ali was calling for is a blasphemy law in accord with sharia. At least he was honest about it even though I’m not sure everyone would get the nuance because of course Muslims, as “brown people”*, are “oppressed” and therefore must be lovey-dovey multi-culti and like into trans-rights and gay pride and like all that “cool” stuff. Because we all know only straight, white males are capable of prejudice.
As to what “desecration” means? It means whatever people want it to. It means whatever is needed to mobilize a mob. How many people who burnt Rushdie’s “Satanic Verses” had read it? How can you be offended by a book you haven’t read? I have read the Qu’ran. I found it offensive and essentially a load of rambling bollocks. The rantings of an immoral dark-age warlord. I didn’t riot about it.
Now, here is where it gets interesting. The third Caliph, Uthman ibn Affan actually burned Qu’rans! He standardized the text and burnt errant versions. So, is the Qu’ran the word of Allah? Or the word of Allah edited by Uthman?
The first four Caliphs are regarded as “rightly guided” (whatever precisely that means) but I think that is an interesting fact WRT “desecration”. Oddly enough I’m reminded of who holds the record for burning the Star-Spangled Banner. The Boy Scouts of America! When Old Glory gets tatty you can’t just junk it. The Scouts give knackered flags a dignified end. The mobs of the Ayatollahs are way behind. I hope that irks them. It probably does. Most things do.
*Apart from the ones who aren’t – obviously. But the race card is played – and from the bottom of the deck.
Runcie:
I think the Labour Party became very disenchanted with the white working class after 1968, and it was much easier to replace them with a reliable voting bloc of brown people. That is why they have been so in favour of mass immigration. It is like the Democrats in the USA. They would not be quite so keen on brown people if they voted Republican.
Of course, 50 years on, we can see that the brown people they brought in are not on board with gay rights and trans rights, but these had hardly been thought of in 1968. And it is too late now anyway. With the way demographics are going, the white British are in line to become a minority in their own country by 2070. And then there will still be a country called Britain, but it won’t be the Britain our ruling class has wished away.
Even in the United States people can be hounded from their jobs for expressing critical opinions about Muhammed, Islamic history and Islamic law.
In countries such as the United Kingdom things are much worse – as someone can face both threats of death from the followers of Islam, and the threat of legal prosecution from the “Christian” (really atheist “Critical Theory” – which comes from Marxism) state.
And yes it was disgusting when Jews or Christians behaved in this way – for example Jezebel should not have been killed (although she herself was accused of murder – there was no proper trial before her killing) and her body left for dogs. And Constantine should not have plundered pagan temples to get gold and silver to restore the coinage – and later Emperors should not have persecuted people for pagan worship. No more than Christians should have been persecute by Diocletian and others.
I must apologize. I said that the white British will be a minority in their own country by 2070. My mistake. The demographer Dr Paul Morland now says that at current rates, we will be a minority by 2050.
Has any country ever been erased so thoroughly by its own political class? When Enoch Powell delivered the “rivers of blood” speech in 1968, did even the most pessimistic person believe the white British would be a minority in Britain by 2050? It must surely have been inconceivable. Yet Britain is being erased before our eyes. And as Paul often points out, it seems to be illegal to express any opposition to this. Would Prime Minister Nigel Farage be any different? At this stage, I cannot give anyone the benefit of the doubt.
How can you desecrate the prophets? They’re all dead. Does he mean desecrate the *bodies* of the prophets? Won’t you have difficulty identifying which of the multitudinous claims are the real bones?
JGH:
Having a good command of the English language is no longer necessary for an MP. A reliable voting bloc who all meet up every Friday is more useful.