by James Price, The Critic
The right’s refusal to confront political Islam has helped entrench it in Britain
The row over whether the large-scale Islamic prayer event in Trafalgar Square represented a form of cultural domination fittingly continues to dominate debate in Britain. Everyone from Anglican bishops to Labour cabinet ministers have lined up to say that concerns about Islam in Britain are unfounded, bigoted, and just downright racist. Meanwhile, a new Islamic terrorist group, Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, has claimed responsibility for setting fire to four Jewish volunteer ambulances in Golders Green early on Monday morning.
Meanwhile, one commentator, a former Conservative Party candidate called Has Ahmed, has argued that the Conservative Party has a specific and disproportionate problem with Islam. He has suggested that the Conservative Party believes that “Islam is not simply another religion subject to critique. It is treated as a uniquely suspect force: politically charged, culturally incompatible, and persistently framed as a threat.”
Mr Ahmed was once attacked, whilst out campaigning and wearing a Conservative rosette, by a man in Islamic dress who called him “a fucking idiot” for voting Conservative. He was told to go to a “fucking white country”. The interaction took place in London.
This follows other criticism from former Conservatives. Former Attorney-General Dominic Grieve, once considered a hardliner on certain issues of integration, now leads the call to define Islamophobia in law. And who can forget Baroness Warsi? Her relentless condemnation of the Conservative Party is her way of showing her gratitude for being made a peer at 36 after losing an election, being made Chairman of the Party, and then having another senior ministerial role invented for her after she failed in CCHQ.
She resigned the Conservative whip in September 2024 before she could be stripped of it, after congratulating Palestine protesters for calling Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman “coconuts” – a racist term alluding to the fact that coconuts are dark on the outside, but white on the inside.