AS TCW reported on Monday, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is discouraging its young people from applying to British universities – not because it fears the students will be targets of ‘Islamophobia’ but because of the risk that they will be radicalised into Islamist extremists. Like other moderate Arab nations, they regard British universities as ‘Hezbollah training camps with matriculation fees’.
So many of the authorities in the UK – politicians, civil servants, journalists, academics – behave like what Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls ‘intellectuals yet idiots’. These are individuals who possess high levels of education and theoretical knowledge but lack practical wisdom and real-world accountability, and are typical of the ideology-driven ‘leaders’ forcing the UK down this counter-cultural route.
The official AI overview would have us believe that Muslim culture contributes significantly to the economy, food, fashion, arts and academia, alongside the development of unique British Muslim identity and community institutions, such as Centres for Islamic Studies, the halal food sector, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association, and even public figures such as London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan and former Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf.
This dynamic process has introduced a new confident British Islam, blending faith with British culture in the UK’s diverse social fabric. Really?
What about all those unacceptable and usually illegal aspects of cultural practice such as forced marriages, FGM, honour killings and the segregation and veiling of women and girls?Our trusty AI overview assures us these practices do not represent mainstream British Muslims.
But, as Reform MP Sarah Pochin has stated, although sharia law is not part of the UK legal system it is estimated that there are up to 85 so-called sharia courts operating in Britain today.
She believes they should be banned and that there should be a clear single law for all citizens of the UK, she believes. Yet the official government line is that sharia rulings are not legally binding and that voluntary participation in such councils remains a matter of religious tolerance.
Tell that to the parents of Laura Wilson, victim of an ‘honour killing’, or the thousands of victims of the Muslim ‘grooming’ gangs, or the dramatic surge in anti-Semitism in British universities.
British Jews have suffered much of the anti-Semitism spiking round the world since October 7. A report by the Community Security Trust identified 3,528 anti-Semitic incidents in 2024 alone, and only one third of British Jews believe they have a long term future in the UK.
Another report by the UK arm of StandWithUs, an international Israel education organisation, found that 64 per cent of students were unwilling to call October 7 ‘terrorism’ and that 38 per cent agreed that students who publicly support Israel should expect abuse on campus.
The Labour peer Lord Cryer said the evidence was littered with examples of virulent support for Hamas and Hezbollah, both proscribed terrorist organisations. Supporting them should be met with the full force of the law.
Like the supporters of the Maccabi football team, perhaps? It is now clear that the decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from the Europa League match at Aston Villa in November was an outright case of the UK police giving in to Islamists, out of fear of confronting them.
Craig Guildford, the West Midlands Chief Constable, is under pressure to resign after he admitted to misleading MPs. It was in fact the threat of armed Muslim gangs confronting Israeli fans that led to his decision.
This aspect of Islamic ideology is cited by Douglas Murray in a clip headlined ‘Do Muslim countries care about Palestine?’
Murray states unequivocally that while Muslims do not love other Muslims, what they really hate is – Jews. Jews living and winning.
He says: ‘It’s an ancient hatred, perhaps the most ancient among the monotheisms, and the deepest and ugliest, the nastiest, and the one that has been least addressed. And we’ve imported it.’
Yet the organisation that drives this ideology throughout the world, the Muslim Brotherhood, remains spinelessly tolerated in the UK. Toleration? Read ‘submission’.
It’s all very well for Kemi Badenoch to bring up this issue now, but the Conservative Party must acknowledge its significant role in allowing this to happen.
One authority who knows exactly what she’s talking about is Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who featured in TCW last week.
Originally a Somali Muslim, and survivor of civil war, forced marriage, FGM, and the murder of her colleague Theo van Gogh by Islamist activism, she has stated that Britain is facing Islamic conquest. She has now agreed to become an adviser to the Board of Advance UK to help focus resistance to this existential threat.
If Advance UK, and TCW, and indeed the education authorities of the UAE, can see that Britain’s cultural tradition of toleration is being rampantly abused and exploited by virulent Islamism, surely it is time for the Government, its own education authorities, and – most of all – the parents of our aspiring young people, to wake up and demand the tide is turned.
