Suspended Tory’s comments likely to help Mayor’s campaign
By Amit RoyMar 02, 2024
THE London mayoral election is on May 2, so it’s not that far away.
If I were Sadiq Khan, I would be pleased privately by Lee Anderson’s comments about him on GB News: “I don’t actually believe that the Islamists have got control of our country, but what I do believe is they have got control of Khan and they have got control of London… He has actually given our capital city away to his mates.”
In public, Sadiq called Anderson’s remarks “Islamophobic, anti-Muslim and racist” and said: “These comments pour fuel on the fire of anti-Muslim hatred.”
Just over an hour after Sadiq’s criticism, a spokesperson for the Tory party’s chief whip, Simon Hart, announced: “Following his refusal to apologise for comments made yesterday, the chief whip has suspended the Conservative whip from Lee Anderson MP.”
Anderson’s remarks are counterproductive. They will only help Sadiq to win. It will be recalled that in the 2016 mayor election, his Tory challenger, Zac Goldsmith, said Sadiq had “given platforms, oxygen and even cover – over and over and over again – to those who seek to do our police and capital harm”.
He said Sadiq, the Muslim son of a bus driver, “has tried to silence questions about his links [to extremists] by shamelessly accusing anyone who raises them of being Islamophobic”.
Even Zac’s sister, Jemima Khan, had to slap down her brother: “Sad that Zac’s campaign did not reflect who I know him to be – an eco-friendly, independent-mind politician with integrity.”
For helping his campaign, Sadiq should take Anderson to lunch.
The underlying domestic politics of Britain is being poisoned by the Israel-Hamas war. Things will probably calm down once it’s over.
But we do need an immediate ceasefire, not least because Israeli society is being brutalised by the war in ways that it may come to regret later.
Sadiq Khan
The reality is that people all over the world have forgotten Hamas’s initial assault on October 7 last year, and are now only concerned about the indiscriminate killing of thousands of Palestinian women and children.
Few people are persuaded by the Israeli government’s argument that in order to target Hamas fighters, its military first has to get past Palestinian civilians.
Prince William was probably thinking of his own children when he said: “I remain deeply concerned about the terrible human cost of the conflict in the Middle East since the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7. Too many have been killed. I, like so many others, want to see an end to the fighting as soon as possible. There is a desperate need for increased humanitarian support to Gaza. It’s critical that aid gets in and the hostages are released.
“Sometimes it is only when faced with the sheer scale of human suffering that the importance of permanent peace is brought home.
“Even in the darkest hour, we must not succumb to the counsel of despair. I continue to cling to the hope that a brighter future can be found and I refuse to give up on that.”
That, I think, is the view of most ordinary people. They are not being anti-Semitic. They don’t understand the complicated politics of the region or that Israel has a point of view.
It is worth remembering that during the Mumbai massacre of 2008, six Jewish people from the Chabad centre, including Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, were killed by the terrorists.
India is one of the few countries in the world where Jews have always felt safe.
I have visited three synagogues in Kolkata, which are looked after by Muslim caretakers.
US president Donald Trump gestures next to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Ben Gurion International Airport as Trump leaves Israel en route to Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, to attend a world leaders' summit on ending the Gaza war, amid a US-brokered prisoner-hostage swap and ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, in Lod, Israel, October 13, 2025.
‘They make a desert and call it peace’, wrote the Roman historian Tacitus. That was an early exercise, back in AD 96, of trying to walk in somebody else’s shoes. The historian was himself the son-in-law of the Roman Governor of Britain, yet he here imagined the rousing speech of a Caledonian chieftain to give voice to the opposition to that imperial conquest.
Nearly two thousand years later, US president Donald Trump this week headed to Sharm-El-Sheikh in the desert, to join the Egyptian, Turkish and Qatari mediators of the Gaza ceasefire. Twenty more world leaders, including prime minister Sir Keir Starmer and president Emmanuel Macron of France turned up too to witness this ceremonial declaration of peace in Gaza.
This ceasefire brings relief after two years of devastating pain. Tens of thousands of civilians have been killed. More of the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas are returning dead than alive. Eighty-five per cent of Gaza is rubble. Each of the twenty steps of the proposed peace plan may prove rocky. The state of Palestine has more recognition - in principle - than ever before across the international community, but it may be a long road to that taking practical form. Israel continues to oppose a Palestinian state.
The ceasefire will be welcomed in Britain for humanitarian relief and rekindling hopes of a path to a political settlement. It offers an opportunity to take stock on the fissures of the last two years on community relations here in Britain too. That was the theme of a powerful cross-faith conversation last week, convened by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, to reciprocate the expressions of solidarity received from Muslims, Christians and others after the Manchester synagogue attacks, and challenge the arson attack on a Sussex mosque.
Jewish and Muslim civic voices had convened an ‘optimistic alliance’ to keep conversations going when there seemed ever less to be optimistic about. The emerging news from Gaza was seen as a hopeful basis to deepen conversation in Britain about how tackling the causes of both antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice could form part of a shared commitment to cohesion.
This conflict has not seen a Brexit-style polarisation down the middle of British society. Most people’s first instinct was to avoid choosing a side in this conflict. The murderous Hamas attack on Jews on October 7, 2023 and the excesses of the Israeli assault on Gaza piled tragedy upon tragedy. The instinct to not take sides can be an expression of mutual empathy, but is not always so noble. It can reflect confusion and exhaustion with this seemingly intractable conflict. A tendency to look away and change the subject can frustrate those whose family heritage, faith solidarity or commitments to Zionism and Palestine as political ideas make them feel more closely connected.
Others have felt this conflict thrust upon them in an unwelcome way - including British Jews fed up with the antisemitic idea that they can be held responsible at school, university or work for what the government of Israel is doing. Protesters for Palestine perceive double standards in arguments about free speech - as do those with contrasting views. The proper boundaries between legitimate political protest and prejudice are sharply contested.
Hamit Coksun is an asylum seeker who speaks somewhat broken English. He would seem an unusual ally for Robert Jenrick. Yet the shadow justice secretary went to court to offer solidarity, after Coskun had burned a Qu’ran outside the Turkish Embassy, while shouting “F__ Islam” and “Islam is the religion of terrorism”. He had been fined £250, but the appeal court overturned his conviction. The judgment was context-specific: this specific incendiary protest took place outside an embassy, not a place of worship, in an empty street, and did not direct the comments at anybody in particular.
The law does not protect faiths from criticism, and indeed offers some protection for intolerant and prejudiced political speech too, though the police can place conditions on protest to protect people from abuse, intimidation or harassment on the basis of their faith.
So it can be legal to performatively burn books - holy or otherwise - though this verdict makes clear it does not offer a green light to do so in every context.
But how far should we celebrate those who choose to burn books? Cosun advocates banning the Qu’ran, making him a flawed champion of free speech. Jenrick is legitimately concerned to show that there are no laws against blasphemy in Britain, but could anybody imagine that he would turn up in person to show solidarity to a man burning the Bible, Bhagvad Gita or Torah, shouting profanities to declaring religion of war or genocide? The court’s defence of the right to shock, offend and provoke is correct in law. Those are hardly the only conversations that a shared society needs.
Sunder Katwalawww.easterneye.biz
Sunder Katwala is the director of thinktank British Future and the author of the book How to Be a Patriot: The must-read book on British national identity and immigration.
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