Tory report targets unrepresentative Muslim groups

The first report from the Conservatives' national and international security group was somewhat underwhelming but today's heavily-trailed report does not pull its punches (Guardian and BBC).  Hot-on-the-heels of David Cameron's likening of BNP supporters and supporters of sharia law, the N&ISG will strongly question the Muslim Council of Britain's credibility in representing Muslim opinion in Britain.  The MCB has long enjoyed strong support from the Government as the leading voice for British Muslims but it and similar groups are "keener to promote ideologies than the totality of the communities they claim to represent," according to Pauline Neville-Jones of the N&ISG.  The MCB has been criticised for its support for Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, an apologist for suicide bombing in Israel.

The report is heavily critical of multiculturalism and calls for a much greater focus on integration than the nurturing of separate identities:

"As Muslim communities enter the third generation of settlement in this country, and in circumstances where a rapidly rising proportion have been educated here, it is anomalous and patronising to individuals to treat them indirectly as members of a group and not directly as citizens in their own individual right on a par with other voters.  Political ghettoisation is the wrong route.  We recommend that an incoming Conservative government moves in the opposite direction: to bring as many Muslims as possible as rapidly as possible into the mainstream of British life on an individual basis equal with that of their fellow non-Muslim citizens."

Comments

[powellite]

Good to see Cameron saying what other politicians dare not say. Looking on the MCB website, they condemn Israel's reaction to endless rocket attacks on their territory as "appalling acts of criminality," and part of a "murderous campaign."

Strangely, they seem to have ommitted to comment on yesterday's mass-murder in Eilat. I'm sure we'll see MCB representatives doing the rounds in the TV and radio studios today condemning this as an appalling act of criminality, and as being part of a murderous campaign which must be repudiated by every right-thinking person...

[London Salmon]

After the tree hugging comes the leadership. Openly condeming the MCB is a bold move, and the right move. Cameron is building layers and getting more impressive by the day.

[TomTom]

Openly condeming the MCB is a bold move

Hardly...he waited until the Government had cut off its funding to exercise followership

[Tory T]

I am very encouraged by this. It is absolutely right and profoundly Conservative. I enjoyed the Labour woman MP on some political show after 7/7 who said to the Muslim extremist "You don't represent Muslims in my area, I do - they voted for me."

No pandering to unlected quangoes that protest Holocaust Memorial Day. Muslims need to be engaged with directly, just as Cameron says, like all other British citizens. Muslim leaders in the community will be people like Sayeeda Warsi who actually stood for Parliament, and Syed Kamall, our elected and Eurosceptic MEP. They can truly claim to represent people.

[mr. hussain]

no more state funding for unelected and unrepresentitive groups like MCB

[George Hinton]

Good oh, the penny's finally dropped that these so called groups are not representative of the Muslim community, but serve to perpetuate the sectarianism that is endemic in a tribal and hierarchal society.
Besides, why do we have these organisations?, a Muslim Parliament a Muslim Council, don't these people have a vote under our democratic system? Why are we allowing these groups to exist and by the look of it, subverting our system and depriving a section of the community of their democratic rights?.
It's been allowed under the failed policy of multi-culturism, that has allowed so-called community leaders, to insinuate themselves between the democratic process and the electorate and usurp the whole system. For many it is a reflection and return to the corrupt processes that they left their home countries all those decades before, for the youth it is a representation of the divide and the separation from the mainstream of life. Ghettoisation.

[Justin Hinchcliffe]

Very pleased with the Report's findings. I suspect many Muslims will be saying, 'At last! Somebody has the courage to stand up to the MCB and other such unrepresentative organisations!' On a slightly different note, who elected Lee Jasper and Peter Tachell (even though I agree with most of what Tachell says, I do not like him to be referred to as a "gay community leader").

[Annabel Herriott]

Tory T. That would be the great Anne Cryer. Labour MP for Keighley in West Yorks. A rare breed of labour who merits a gong! Many Muslim women owe their very lives to her interventions.

[Denis Cooper]

I feel sure that some Labour MPs have already said these things.

[simon]

Well.... i think the report is to be commended for it's bluntness on so-called muslim groups; but as to it's allusion to stem the tide of separation- hell's bells! Bluntly, people live separate lives because they WANT to be separate! People on all communities just do not want to do anything at all with either side. So, as far as i'm concerned- the report is mere window dressing- it doesn't face the unpalatable truth.

[Denis Cooper]

But I'm not sure that the MCB is in fact that unrepresentative, in the sense that its members are detached from the real views of the majority of Muslims in this country. That may be a comforting but dangerous delusion. If anything, it may be deliberately misrepresenting the truth and minimising the extent to which many Muslims don't want to just be part of this country, they want and plan to take it over and impose their religion and their law. This is an aggressive religion, just as aggressive as Christianity in previous centuries, and they are here as a vanguard, not so much as immigrants seeking to assimilate into the host society but as colonists seeking to dominate it. No doubt other Muslims don't look at it in that way, but are they even a majority? And are they capable of controlling the more zealous, and willing to do so?

[Oliver McCarthy]

Given that Mr Cameron shows hardly more sympathy for Christianity than he does for Islam, it's difficult to take anything he says about religion very seriously.

The other thing is that this looks surprisingly like uncharted territory for the Tory Party. Does anyone else know of any precedents for this sort thing?

[Andrew]

"This is an aggressive religion, just as aggressive as Christianity in previous centuries, and they are here as a vanguard, not so much as immigrants seeking to assimilate into the host society but as colonists seeking to dominate it."

That sounds pretty organised. No doubt the Daily Mail must have published excerpts from the master plan by now?

[Simon Newman]

Andrew:
"No doubt the Daily Mail must have published excerpts from the master plan by now?"

Well Sheikh Qaradawi and co's Muslim Brotherhood organisation certainly has a master plan, it's not particularly secret AFAIK, and they're at the very least influential in some public organisations, including the MCB.

[Denis Cooper]

Maybe you'd care to have a look at this, Andrew:

http://www.isic-centre.org:80/briefing_detail.php?recordID=38

"Though the effects are only now becoming noticeable, the planning was done decades ago. In 1980 the Islamic Council of Europe published a book called Muslim Communities in Non-Muslim States which clearly explained the Islamic agenda in Europe. When Muslims live as a minority they face theological problems, because classical Islamic teaching always presupposed a context of Islamic dominance; hence the need for guidance on how to live in non-Muslim states. The instructions given in the book told Muslims to get together and organise themselves with the aim of establishing a viable Muslim community based on Islamic principles. This is the duty of every individual Muslim living within a non-Muslim political entity. They should set up mosques, community centres and Islamic schools. At all costs they must avoid being assimilated by the majority. In order to resist assimilation, they must group themselves geographically, forming areas of high Muslim concentration within the population as a whole. Yet they must also interact with non-Muslims so as to share the message of Islam with them. Every Muslim individual is required to participate in the plan; it is not allowed for anyone simply to live as a “good Muslim” without assisting the overall strategy. The ultimate goal of this strategy is that the Muslims should become a majority and the entire nation be governed according to Islam. (M. Ali Kettani “The Problems of Muslim Minorities and their Solutions” in Muslim Communities in Non-Muslim States (London: Islamic Council of Europe, 1980) pp.96-105)"

[dhanraj]

A bit late in the day but a welcome move in condemning the MCB. They are unrepresentative and have done little to promote integration and better community relations.

[MH]

I love it. I am worried about being shredded by a suicide bomber on the tube and Dave suggests a Muslim Notting Hill carnival. I give up.

[Zorro]

Dave suggests a Muslim Notting Hill carnival.

Par for the course.

Next step will be the baseball cap.

[DANNY BYLAND]

It is all very well talking about the muslims but more muslims seem to get involved in party politics and getting in to elected positions. We, as a party, need to engage sikhs and hindus. The Asian vote particularly at local ward level is extremely influential and important and interestingly the turnout in muslim communities is far higher than in white communities

[matt wright]

Yes, reading the report this is good and the right direction. Camerons comments very good, genuinely so. There have been several announcements recently that indicate DC is getting a delicate balancing act just about right,

Matt

[Andrew]

"Well Sheikh Qaradawi and co's Muslim Brotherhood organisation certainly has a master plan, it's not particularly secret "

Certainly - however, they're just a few loons. What have they to do with all the individual Muslims that made the choice to move here? I rather doubt they all emigrated to be part of a colonising vanguard, as you put it.

In fact, as recently in the news, it's the young, educated here, that are far more radical than the parents who original made the move. For all the talk of terrorists being radicalised in Pakistan, it turns out the 7/7 bombers turned into extremists right here.

[Zorro]

Same old names backing everything Cameron says or does. Same old names trashing him.

Isn't his key problem the word "unrepresentative"?

I suspect these groups are more representative of Muslim opinion than he'd like to think.

Anyway, looks like this is Dave's first timid step towards playing the familiar Tory "Race Card"

[Denis Cooper]

That was my reference to a "vanguard", Andrew, not Simon's, so I will reply.

The context was that the MCB "may be deliberately misrepresenting the truth and minimising the extent to which many Muslims don't want to just be part of this country, they want and plan to take it over and impose their religion and their law. This is an aggressive religion, just as aggressive as Christianity in previous centuries, and they are here as a vanguard, not so much as immigrants seeking to assimilate into the host society but as colonists seeking to dominate it. No doubt other Muslims don't look at it in that way, but are they even a majority?"

I did not say that "they all emigrated to be part of a colonising vanguard", and you have no right to add "as you put it" after that phrase because that is definitely not how I put it. As far as the "all" is concerned, you may have noticed the use of the word "many", and the qualification that "No doubt other Muslims don't look at it in that way" followed by the question "but are they even a majority?", a question to which I suggest you no more have the answer than I do. As far as the "emigrated" is concerned, I did not say that all those Muslims who have emigrated here see or saw themselves as a "colonising vanguard" - in many cases they may not even have intended to settle here permanently - and nor did I say that all the Muslims who now see themselves as a colonising vanguard have emigrated here, precisely because it is clear that there are young Muslims who have been born and bred here who have extreme views which their parents and grandparents don't share.

[Matt Davis]

About bloody time a major political fogure came out and said this so will done to Cameron for doing so. I'm not entirely sure about everything in his speech and what little there was by way of suggestions for addressing the problem of Muslim non integration were not all on target but at least he has entered the debate and from the right angle. (no pun intended)

[John Irvine]

"to bring as many Muslims as possible as rapidly as possible into the mainstream of British life on an individual basis equal with that of their fellow non-Muslim citizens."

How are you going to achieve that against their wishes?

Enforce the benefits of gay adoption?

[Val B]

The problem in this country is we give too much weight to Islamism, forever asking what they think, are they offended etc etc, even to the extent of incorporating Islamic quangos into Government as reference groups. I think if I were Hindu, Jewish, Sikh or Buddha I would feel rather offended that my opinion mattered so little! To avoid complications, rules governing the country should have applied to all - no exceptions. On arrival in this country emigres should have been made aware from the outset that rules would not be bent to accommodate one group or another. Endless
tinkering to accommodate various people according to colour, religion and class has caused so much resentment and confusion in this country. Social engineering by this Government has highlighted differences between people and prevented assimilation.

[George Hinton]

I would like to set up the Middlesex Anglo-Saxon, Scottish and Druidical Assembly. (MASSDAY)
Membership would be strictly limited to those able to show 250 years of familial residence in Great Britain and a committment to the Magna Carta and Parliamentary process.
Would i be breaking any laws?

[Denis Cooper]

Probably not, provided you were careful about the wording of your recruitment literature. I don't think the present laws on indirect racial discrimination could be stretched quite far enough to forbid the creation of such an assembly. But as the organiser you would of course be exposed by self-righteous undercover reporters, pilloried in the liberal media and sacked from your job.

[Roger]

Well done David! I never understood why the Government gave the time of day to organisations like MCB who are patently separatist and so woefully bigoted as to refuse to endorse Holocaust Memorial Day.

Let's not forget that MCB were organisers of the anti-war demonstrations to protect Saddam Hussein's ghastly regime and that Ken Livingstone shared the stage with them to denounce the American President.