Latest news with #burkaBan
Telegraph
3 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
Nigel Farage has yet to prove he can work with others
Two days after quitting after a very public dispute with one of the party's five MPs, former Reform chairman Zia Yusuf is returning to the party to take up a new role, with his exact job title yet to be settled on. On Thursday, helping Nigel Farage's party continue its remarkable rise was no longer a 'good use' of Mr Yusuf's time; today, it once again appears to be his primary objective. This will be welcome news for Mr Farage, who was reported to have felt dejected by Mr Yusuf's sudden departure. It is a positive sign, too, that the personality clashes within the party appear to have been put to one side for now. Peace has broken out over the spat that led to his departure, with Mr Yusuf attributing his decision to a combination of 'exhaustion' and feeling blindsided by the sudden raising of a potential burka ban as a policy issue in Parliament. The last two days of drama point,however, to a wider issue: Reform is not yet a professional operation on par with the established rivals it seeks to displace. While the party has made considerable electoral progress in the past year, Reform's institutional structures have lagged behind with repeated embarrassing stories over previous statements made by candidates highlighting in sharp and unforgiving fashion the importance of building back office capabilities to identify, screen and vet candidates to a satisfactory standard. There is, however, only so much staff can do. The concern for Reform will be that the sudden changes in personnel that have unfolded over the last year – the departure of Rupert Lowe MP, the resignation and return of Mr Yusuf – are mirroring a pattern observed in previous episodes in Mr Farage's political career. The former UKIP and Brexit party leader is no stranger to clashes with colleagues, and while apparently not directly at fault in this instance there will still be concerns that some elements of the drama around Reform may be integral to his leadership style. This, rather than the political skill of Sir Keir Starmer or Kemi Badenoch, may prove the greatest obstacle to Reform's ambitions in the years ahead. While Mr Farage has succeeded in capturing the votes of a large proportion of this country disaffected with Westminster and the traditional parties of government, there is little appetite to return to the squabbling and briefing that marked the dying years of the last Conservative government, or the worst days of New Labour. It is now for Reform to prove it can steer a calmer course.
Telegraph
3 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
We shall not remain a free country if we continue to submit to radical Islamists
It shows in what strange times we live that it is the chairman of Reform, of all parties, who resigns over the question of banning the burka. Surely his party is the likeliest to favour a ban or – at least – to be able to contain internal disagreements on the subject. Probably Reform's chairman, Zia Yusuf, had other reasons to go. He is not the first person to find it challenging to work closely with Nigel Farage. In a spooky way, Reform tends to act as a mini-Maga, mirroring Trumpery in its highs and lows. Over there, Donald Trump and Elon Musk explode with a cosmic bang; over here, Farage and Yusuf then go off with a smaller pop. For this reason, I suspect that when Maga falters, as it eventually will, so will Reform. Nevertheless, Mr Yusuf is a Muslim. Partly for that reason, he was a recruitment coup for the supposedly 'Islamophobic' Reform. On Thursday, he said his party's newest MP, Sarah Pochin, had been 'dumb', at Prime Minister's Questions, to call for a burka ban; then he resigned. Let me take two other recent examples of where attitudes to Islam raise knotty problems. On Monday, Hamit Coskun, an atheist Turk, was found guilty of a 'religiously aggravated public order offence' and fined. He had burnt a copy of the Koran outside the Turkish consulate in London. In an article in this week's Spectator, Mr Coskun says he was protesting about President Erdogan of Turkey changing his country from a firmly secular state to 'a base for radical Islamists while trying to create a sharia regime'. The magistrate, however, decided otherwise. Mr Coskun had been 'motivated at least in part by hatred of followers of the [Muslim] religion', he said, and so he was a criminal. My other example comes from events outside Parliament on Wednesday. A noisy mob of anti-Israel demonstrators blocked, insulted and intimidated MPs and peers trying to enter. The protesters proudly announced that they were drawing a red line round the premises, as if they had that right. A disabled peer I know who travels by wheelchair, found it frightening to get through the crowd, though he determinedly persisted. He complained to a police officer, and got the airy reply, 'It's free speech, isn't it?' It indicates the sense of vulnerability such situations arouse that the peer asks me not to print his name. Another peer, Lord Moynihan, was surrounded near the Tube station entrance by black-clad youths who subjected him to an involuntary interview, which they filmed, including the question: 'Do you condemn the massacres of Gazans?' 'I do indeed condemn the terrible shootings by Hamas of their own people,' he bravely answered. It was noticeable – and has happened before – that when there are Gaza marches the police and the parliamentary authorities are lax about ensuring legislators can enter freely and protesters are kept at a distance. They seem not to acknowledge the vital difference between free speech and threatening behaviour. Obviously, the greatest passion behind the Gaza marches comes from Muslims (though the secular hard-Left is also involved). Have the police made a covert bargain with the march organisers? The fear of being called 'Islamophobic ' seems to disable the police's judgment. They do not properly enforce public order or protect the right of MPs, peers or staff, to reach their place of work unimpeded. Nor do they protect the right of ordinary citizens to enter Parliament without fear. They act as if the 'right to protest' allows parliamentary democracy to be made subject to a picket line. Yesterday, with many other peers, I signed a letter to the Lord Speaker, organised by Lord Walney. One of our points was that, on top of normal public-order legislation, there are at least four other laws which specifically protect Parliament from such attacks. Why are these not enforced, we asked, and why do the parliamentary authorities not take a stronger line to insist that they should be? One of the attractions of Britain to immigrants is that we are a free country, treasuring free speech. In many cases, immigrants enhance our freedom. Now that immigration is on such a vast scale, however, we suffer because many immigrants do not come from freedom-loving cultures. To the extent that immigrants can be grouped by religion, the largest single group are Muslims. For complex political, economic and cultural reasons, Islam is in global ferment. In that ferment, freedom is often scorned, except the freedom to advance interpretations of Islam, often the most extreme ones. Such Islamists have punitive, sometimes violent attitudes to promoting their version of their faith. At worst, this takes the form of terrorism. The words 'Allahu Akbar!' ('God is great!') have become the war-cry of an imminent explosion or attack. Even without actual violence, Islamism often involves naked anti-Semitism and unreasoning hatred of Israel. Militant Islam also tries to assert its power against the sort of freedoms which the rest of us (including, do not forget, many Muslims) cherish. Examples include forcing women and girls to cover their heads and even their faces, prohibitions on school swimming or singing, protests against being served by women in the public services and the banning of certain books and films. A leading Islamist demand is for a blasphemy law, although its supporters use other words to describe it. Most Muslims are highly sensitive to any perceived insult to their prophet, Mohammed, or to the Koran. Because they regard the Koran as 'the unmediated word of God', some take the view that disrespect to the physical object, the book of his word, is a direct attack on him, and therefore must be avenged. Belief in the sacredness of religious scriptures should be respected by non-believers, but it must not be defended by law, no matter how much transgressions may offend Muslims. It is unpleasant and foolish to burn the Koran in public, just as it was – which often happened in Britain until quite recently – to burn effigies of the Pope. But the only conceivable justification for banning would be in special incidents – burning a Koran in front of worshippers entering a mosque, for example – which would amount to an incitement to violence. The offence here should not be because the act was 'religiously aggravated'. A modern country should not adjudicate between the sincerity, truth or competing ardour of different religious claims. All it can judge is that some things in some places breach civil peace. In all the cases cited above, you can see politicians and public authorities tiptoeing round the subject. Surefootedness is certainly better than clodhopping where religion is concerned. But there is a growing, justified fear that we shall not continue as a free country if we defer to the angriest Muslim voices. Two concepts need to be faced down. The first is the idea of 'Islamophobia', to which this Government wants to give legal shape. The word 'phobia' suggests psychological abnormality, yet surely people are entitled to be frightened of any religion, especially of Christianity and Islam, which aims for conversion and claims universal truth. Such fears may be misplaced, but they are not criminal. The other concept embedded in public policy, thanks to the Equality Act, is that of 'protected characteristics' – one's religion, sex, sexuality, age, disability, race etc. These are intended to defend people against persecution, but in practice they drive us into warring categories. The only protected characteristic anyone should need is to be a British citizen. That unites. Everything else divides.
Telegraph
5 days ago
- Lifestyle
- Telegraph
Reform splits over burka ban
Reform UK's newest MP calling for a ban on the burka was 'dumb', the party's chairman has said. In a sign of a party split on the policy, Zia Yusuf said he had 'no idea' that Sarah Pochin's first question at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday would be demanding a burka ban. Mr Yusuf wrote on X: 'I do think it's dumb for a party to ask the PM if they would do something the party itself wouldn't do.' He added: 'Nothing to do with me. Had no idea about the question nor that it wasn't policy. Busy with other stuff.' Mrs Pochin, who was elected last month as the Reform MP for Runcorn and Helsby, stood to ask Sir Keir Starmer her first question at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday. The former Tory councillor said: 'Given the Prime Minister's desire to strengthen strategic alignment with our European neighbours, will he, in the interests of public safety, follow the lead of France, Denmark, Belgium and others and ban the burka?' The question prompted a rippling of audible disquiet among some fellow MPs. Sir Keir responded: 'Can I welcome her to her place [in the House of Commons]? But I am not going to follow her down that line. 'Now she is here, and safely in her place, perhaps she could tell her new party leader [Nigel Farage] that his latest plan to bet £80 billion of unfunded tax cuts, [with] no idea how he is going to pay for it, is Liz Truss all over again. 'Although considering I think she was a Conservative member when Liz Truss was leader she probably won't.' France banned wearing the burka and any other full-face veils in public places in 2010. Denmark passed a similar ban in 2018. Mrs Pochin, a former Tory councillor, later said that the question was something that 'a number of people had raised' with her. 'Face coverings in public don't make sense' Despite the party confirming that it was not policy, Lee Anderson, the Reform party whip, said on social media: 'Ban the burka? Yes we should. 'No one should be allowed to hide their identity in public.' Nigel Farage, the Reform leader, later told GB News that he believed that 'face coverings in public don't make sense and I think we deserve a debate about that, of which I see the burka being part.'
