by Jim Chimirie on X
Hundreds of Muslims gathered in Trafalgar Square on Monday evening to pray and break their Ramadan fast. The Adhan, the call to prayer, rang out across a national memorial built to commemorate Britain’s naval victory at the Battle of Trafalgar, a battle fought to preserve this nation’s independence and sovereignty, in the shadow of St Martin-in-the-Fields, one of London’s most historic Christian churches. The declaration that there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger echoed across one of the most symbolically loaded public spaces in the country. The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan attended. The Prime Minister Keir Starmer applauded.
Nick Timothy said what millions thought but were too polite to say. Mass ritual prayer in public places is an act of domination. The Adhan, when called in a shared civic space, is by definition a declaration of exclusive religious truth in territory that belongs to everyone. That is not Islamophobia. It is theology. Trafalgar Square was not chosen by accident. It is chosen because it is the most symbolically resonant public space in Britain, and because the statement being made is precisely about whose space it is and whose it is becoming.
Starmer’s response told us everything we need to know about the quality of his argument. He did not engage with Timothy’s point. He reached immediately for Tommy Robinson, invoking a convicted criminal as a moral authority to condemn a former senior adviser to a Prime Minister. He compared the Trafalgar Square prayer to Diwali, Chanukah and Easter processions, knowing the equivalence is false. Diwali, Chanukah and the Passion are celebrations. They do not involve a declaration that there is no god but the god of the celebrants. The Adhan does. And Starmer knows it.
But Trafalgar Square is only the beginning of the picture. British cathedrals have been hosting iftar. Manchester Cathedral opened its doors for Ramadan prayers. It is technically against canon law to invite members of another religion to pray in front of a cathedral altar. The canon law was not enforced. Nobody was held accountable. Next Ramadan it will happen again, in other cathedrals, with renewed rounds of polite applause from the same bishops whose predecessors built the institutions now being used for the purpose.
Read also: Nick Timothy is right: Islam is getting more assertive by Hugo Timms, spiked