At the end of last week, Zia Yusuf, the millionaire “patriotic Muslim” chairman of Reform, left the party with this goodbye email: “11 months ago I became chairman of Reform… I no longer believe working to get a Reform government elected is a good use of my time, and hereby resign the office”.
This came after Sarah Pochin, a new Reform MP, urged the PM to ban the burka, “in the name of public safety”. Yusuf thought it was a “dumb” intervention and flounced off. Now he is back in the fold, being flattered and coddled by Nigel Farage and his motley lot. Nige actually looked grey with shock when he first commented on the unexpected resignation. Now the perma smile is back.
Now Kemi Badenoch, a hungry political scavenger, has picked up the burka theme. She wants bosses to be able to ban burkas. Lots of votes in that, she calculates, as her party sinks.
Neither Reform nor the Tories give a damn about us Muslim females. They just want to incite hatred. Anti-Muslim bones are thrown and are grabbed by ISLAMOPHOBES. The burka is used, as it was by the ghastly Boris Johnson, as a code to incite fear of an enemy within.
Muslims make up only 6.7% of the UK’s population, but you would not know that from the hysteria they/we generate in the media and politics.
Farage previously accused Muslims of wanting to take over the UK and, last May, told the nation that Muslims do “not subscribe to British values”. As defined by him.
So Lord Chancellor Shabana Mahmood, Tory peer Sayeeda Warsi, Olympian Sir Mo Farah, polymath Adil Ray, actor Riz Ahmed, TV chef Nadiya Hussain, broadcaster Mishal Husain, etc, are aliens living among us. Me too. Dangerous rubbish. And they know it. Yusuf, the born again Reform chairman, manifestly does.
That said, the burka is not a brown and white issue. Modernist Muslims like me have, for many years, expressed dismay and opposition to all forms of veiling.
I even wrote a book, Refusing the Veil, some years ago, outlining its history, exposing fake claims about what the holy texts say and revealing the long history of resistance to it.
There are only five fundamental obligations in Islam. Veiling is not on the list. Aisha bint Talha, a granddaughter of Abu Bakr, head of Sunni Muslims after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, refused to cover herself: “Since God has put upon me the stamp of beauty, it is my wish that the public should view that beauty… No one can force me to do anything.”
Egyptian, Iranian, Iraqi and Afghan women, through the centuries, have done what she did. And keep on challenging the practice today. I also am forthright about grooming circles of men of Pakistani heritage and their white victims.
As a feminist Muslim, I feel I must continue to do that.
However, as an anti-racist leftie, I must take on vicious politicians who are going after people of my faith. The genuine anxieties and problems experienced by citizens across the Western world are being exploited by the far right to whip up xenophobia against migrants and Muslims.
Reform tries to project itself as inclusive – Yusuf was a useful mascot – but this does not bear scrutiny.
Farage, like Trump, has savaged equality policies because they “disadvantage” white people. A year ago, a Channel 4 investigation recorded Reform canvassers making explicitly Islamophobic and racist comments. The Great Leader has posed with far-right activists who show off their swastikas.
With more voters flocking to his party and unending media sycophancy, Farage seems unstoppable.
Yusuf is back on the mission to make him PM. He may succeed. Then Reform’s messiah will dump on the common people. Those who pick on minorities should not be trusted. Ever.
Muslims will have to battle against these xenophobes as well as misogyny within our families and communities. And for British democracy, hard times are coming.
At last, some really good news to share. A London project aimed at children aged 10 to 17 who had been arrested for violent crimes has produced staggering results – almost nine out of 10 have not reoffended.
Funded by London’s Violence Reduction Unit, it places youth workers in police custody centres across the capital. Data also shows that nearly three-quarters of young victims of stabbing or violent incidents reduced their risk of harm after interventions from the youth workers.
Since the VRU started in 2019, homicide rates are down in the capital. Its murder rate is now lower than Paris, Toronto, Manchester and Berlin. It costs £40million. The cost of youth crime is £1billion. It’s a no-brainer.
I read excerpts of Sarah Vine’s new book, How Not to Be a Political Wife with, first, amusement, then annoyance.
The stridently anti-EU Daily Mail columnist and ex-Mrs Michael Gove was once in the top Tory girl gang led by Samantha Cameron.
The great Brexit swindle broke them up. Vine was devastated – no more holidays together, no cheery dinners, no children’s sleepovers.
Her marriage, she claims, crashed too. I feel her pain. Sort of. But there is no concern that the country fell apart and will never recover.
Her lot live in a bubble of privilege and vanity. That’s why the voters kicked them out. No lessons have been learnt.