Ummmm..it appears that David Cameron and Britain's Conservative Party stepped in the nasty stuff,big time.
Cameron and the Tories set up a body of Muslims to advise the Conservatives on Muslim issues, sort of a `shadow' advisory board to the one Tony Blair set up for Labour. Like Blair, Cameron underestimated exactly how radicalized, and even arrogant many of Britain's Muslims have become.
The Conservative Muslim Forum works out of the Conservative Party headquarters in London and is chaired by Lord Sheikh, a Tory party donor who was got a peerage last year. They recently issued a statement in response to a report by the Tory National and International Security Policy Group chaired by new adviser, Dame Pauline Neville-Jones.
So what does the Conservative Muslim Council `advise'?
Well, for starters, they like the idea of Iran having nuclear weapons `for defensive purposes' especially to defend themselves against the country Iran has repeatedly threatened to attack and destroy, Israel. And of course, they criticize whatthey refer to as `unqualified support given to Israel by the current government' because `it is not conducive to British national interests as this could damage Britain's relationships with 15 billion Muslims worldwide, including those in Britain.'
Given that the Blair government has hardly demonstrated `unqualified support' for Israel, what this amounts to is a threat that any support for Israel whatsoever would make Britain's Muslims really really, angry...and someone could get hurt.
They also demand that Britain amend the compulsory history curriculum in schools to give "full recognition to the massive contribution that Islam has made to the development of Western civilization".
And they also want imams and Muslim clerics who advocate a rejection of democracy and its institutions to be allowed entry into Britain.
Needless to say,this is a little bit of an embarrassment for David Cameron, especially since it goes against a number of his statements on these issues and conventional Tory policies.
It would seem that while most Muslims vote Labour or Liberal, there's not much difference between them and the ones who vote Conservative when it comes to issues like Israel, Islamic terrorism,Iran, Islamism and national security.
My mother had a saying "Don't ask unless you can handle the answer."
My mother is a very wise woman.
1. I think you mean 1.5 billion Muslims not 15 billion which is more than the entire population of the World.
ReplyDelete2. Your comment about Muslims mainly voting Labour or Liberal is an old stereotype. In 2004 in local elections in Bradford, Batley etc Muslims reacted to Blair invading Iraq by voting ABL 'Anybody but Labour'. Inner city wards which had been Labour for 50 years went to Asian Tory candidates. The Muslims are not interested in party politics but in which party will offer the most for their community. Whichever party appears to be offering their voters the best package gets their vote this time. Remember the candidate in Ealing Southall who was Labour one week and Tory Parliamentary candidate two weeks later.
Hi Ivan,
ReplyDeleteYou're quite correct about the number of Muslims ( actually,more like 1.3 billion).
The `15 billion', believe it or not was a direct quote from the Tory Muslims' report, as quoted in the linked Telegraph article.
I left it in uncorrected deliberately.
As for Muslims mainly voting Liberal or Labour, thanks for the correction. it was my impression that many Muslims supported Labour because they were more willing to pander to them, and because the last Tory leader in the general election, Michael Howard was of Jewish ancestry...something the Labour party actually made a not so covert campaign issue out of in ads geared specifically towards Muslim voters, as you know.
My point, of course is that Labour and Tory Muslims appear to have few differencves on some fairly major isues.
Thanks for dropping by.
Living as I do in the front line in Bradistan (about a mile from Richard North) I know of many local Asian Tory activists. Many of them were activists during Howard's leadership of the Party, it wasn't as big an issue as Labour supporting media made it out to be. My local councillor for a few years was an Asian Tory cab driver. He was a sitting Cllr in Eccleshill ward in North Bradford but didn't stand for re-election (had he blotted his book ?) and came to Great Horton in South Bradford. He put out his own material in Urdu rather than use the Tory's joint leaflet. His leaflet's were telling Asian voters to vote for him but not for the other Tories on the ballot paper !! He got in. He was later convicted of killing a pedestrian in Morley, South Leeds, hitting them at between 60-70 mph in a 30 limit, left the scene of the accident and set his car on fire in Bradford. He phoned the police from home and said someone had stolen his car. He was convicted of causing death by careless driving, arson and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. The judge was amazed he wasn't prosecuted for more serious offence of causing death by reckless driving.
ReplyDeleteAs you might have guessed I got onto your site through Richard's Umbrella Blog.
Great post Ivan.
ReplyDeleteI should clarify something to my American readers...when you write `Asian' it's a euphemism for `Pakistani' commonly used in the UK.
Regards,
FF