by Mary Harrington, UnHerd
Yesterday, Labour’s official X account opted to mark the beginning of Holy Week with a weirdly liturgically tone-deaf post, wishing the public “Happy Palm Sunday from all of us at the Labour Party.” Then Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, posted to mark the Holy Week procession across Trafalgar Square to St Martin-in-the-Fields.
Though Khan did not reference it explicitly, the Palm Sunday procession came in the wake of an internet bunfight over a public Muslim prayer celebration which also took place in Trafalgar Square this month, and in which Khan participated. That event prompted a critical post from Nick Timothy MP, who called it “an act of domination” and demanded that public Muslim worship not happen again in Britain.
Timothy’s post caused a furore, including demands from some MPs that he be censured under Labour’s new “Islamophobia” definition, and even a call by Keir Starmer for Kemi Badenoch to sack him as shadow justice secretary. In this context, Khan’s acknowledgement of the Palm Sunday procession — and likely also Labour’s X post to mark the day — should be interpreted as an intervention in this debate on the side of equal freedom of worship for all in Britain, including Muslims.
Journalist Oli Dugmore made the same point more directly, copying Timothy’s complaint about Muslim worship but substituting in the Palm Sunday procession photo. Why, we are presumably to wonder, should a Christian procession get to do this but not a Muslim one? Yet the answer to this is straightforward: Anglican Christianity is England’s established Church. Our King is its head, and its bishops sit in the House of Lords. There is no tradition in Britain of freedom of worship.