Islamic 'Radicals' at the Heart of Whitehall

Lady Warsi arrives in Downing Street on July 6, 2010

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Baroness Warsi gave official roles to people with links to Islamist groups

Entryism, the favourite tactic of the 1980s’ Militant Tendency, is when a political party or institution is infiltrated by groups with a radically different agenda. Since Militant’s Trotskyites were expelled from the Labour Party, the word has rather fallen out of fashion.

But now, according to one Muslim leader, Islamic radicals are practising entryism of their own — into the heart of Whitehall – courtesy of a woman who was until recently a government minister.

Baroness Warsi, the first Muslim woman to sit in Cabinet, handed official posts to people linked to Islamist groups, including a man involved in an “unpleasant and bullying” campaign to win planning permission for the controversial London “megamosque” proposed by a fundamentalist Islamic sect.

He sits – alongside other radicals or former radicals and their allies – on a “cross-Government working group on anti-Muslim hatred” set up by Lady Warsi and Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister.

Some members of the group are using their seats at the table to urge that Whitehall work with Islamist and extremist-linked bodies, including one described by the Prime Minister as a “political front for the Muslim Brotherhood”. Some are also pressing to lift bans on foreign hate preachers from entering Britain, including Zakir Naik, who has stated that “every Muslim should be a terrorist”. » | Andrew Gilligan | Sunday, February 22, 2015

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Anti-terrorism chief quits over failure to expel suspects: Senior official quits over fears scheme to deport terrorists isn’t working » | Robert Mendick and Robert Verkaik | Saturday, February 21, 2015

Baroness Warsi Launches Bitter Assault On Coalition Strategy Towards Muslims

THE GUARDIAN: Former Tory chair targets Michael Gove for criticism and says failure to engage with the community ‘has fuelled resentment’

Lady Warsi has delivered a blistering critique of the government’s approach towards Britain’s Muslims, warning that failure to engage properly with communities across the UK has created a climate of suspicion and undermined the fight against extremism.

In her first major intervention on the relationship between Muslims and the rest of society since she resigned from the cabinet five months ago, Warsi says the coalition’s policy of non-engagement has caused deep unease and resentment towards the government.

Writing in the Observer, Warsi warns that the government’s stance is counterproductive at a time of heightened national security. This month has seen warnings from MI5 that an attack on the UK is “highly likely” in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris on 8 January. » | Mark Townsend | Saturday, January 24, 2015

Baroness Warsi Was Over-promoted, Incapable and Incompetent

THE SPECTATOR: Farewell then Sayeeda, Baroness Warsi. The most over-promoted, incapable and incompetent minister of recent times has finally done the nation one service and resigned. This morning she announced on Twitter that she can ‘no longer support government policy on Gaza.’ That would be government policy that now includes reviewing all arms export licenses to Israel? Not strong enough for Sayeeda, it would seem.

It was not hard to see this coming. Not just because Warsi’s Twitter activity in recent weeks has mainly consisted of pumping out support for Hamas-run Gaza and berating supporters of Israel for saying things she disagrees with, but also because she has shown a career-long sympathy for Hamas and other Islamic radicals. » | Douglas Murray | Tuesday, August 05, 2014

Warsi Resignation: An Astonishing Charge Sheet against No 10 over Gaza

THE GUARDIAN: Sayeeda Warsi's sudden departure and biting challenge to David Cameron's policy on Israel may have long-term repercussions for the Conservatives

Sayeeda Warsi's resignation may yet prove to be a passing summer storm. But the vitriolic tone of her attack on David Cameron's policy towards Gaza, and her status as the first Muslim cabinet member, suggests her departure has the potential to inflict both political and moral damage on the Conservatives months before the general election.

More importantly, she may have opened the possibility that longstanding, unequivocal British political support for any Israeli government is now under question.

After all, it is not often a minister leaves government warning that its actions, or silence, are morally indefensible, not in the national interest, liable to foster terrorism in the UK and likely to undermine British influence in the Middle East by failing to be seen to be fair-minded. There was a raw emotional power to her resignation as she set out her anguished reaction to the collapse of hospitals, the death of young children on beaches and the realisation that children the same age as those in her own family were being killed in the Israeli raids.

Few ministers have quit accusing George Osborne of failing to speak out against the flattening of schools and hospitals, or recounting tales of backbenchers in tears at the refusal of David Cameron to condemn Israel. » | Patrick Wintour | Tuesday, August 05, 2014

Baroness Warsi Sparks Tory Rebellion Over Gaza

THE INDEPENDENT: First Muslim cabinet minister slams PM for “morally indefensible” policy

David Cameron was facing mutiny among senior Tory MPs last night as they lined up to condemn his handling of the Gaza crisis and to warn his stance was alienating millions of British Muslims.

The rebellion was triggered by the resignation of Baroness Warsi, the first Muslim cabinet minister, over his refusal to take a tougher stance on the Israeli bombardment during which 1,800 Palestinians have died. Her dramatic departure, in which she warned the Prime Minister’s approach was “detrimental” to the national interest and risked radicalising young Muslims, won plaudits from several former Tory ministers. Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, also appeared to back her.

She called for an immediate arms embargo against Israel and said that the Government’s “approach and language during the current crisis in Gaza is morally indefensible”. In a swipe at Mr Cameron, she lamented the sacking of moderate ministers such as Kenneth Clarke in last month’s reshuffle. » | Nigel Morris, Oliver Wright | Tuesday. August 05, 2014

Baroness Warsi ‘Saddened’ by Rise in Islamic Sectarianism

MP's comments come after Briton carries out suicide attack
in Shia-Sunni Syria conflict

THE INDEPENDENT: Islamic sectarianism has become a “deep and dangerous” problem in Britain that is being used to justify acts of religious extremism, the country’s most senior Muslim politician has warned.

In a speech during a trip to the Middle East, Baroness Warsi said that differences between branches of Islam were being used by extremists to cause “tension, turmoil and terrorism”. She warned that such preaching was stripping the “soulfulness and kindness of spirit” from the heart of the religion and called on Islamic leaders to “reclaim the true meaning of the religion”.

Her comments come just days after it emerged that a UK citizen had become the first known Briton to carry out a suicide attack in Syria. Abdul Waheed Majeed, from Crawley, joined Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qa’ida-aligned group, and drove a truck laden with explosives into the gates of a prison in Aleppo.

While the Syrian conflict is in part about the rule of President Assad it also has a very significant sectarian dimension. Mr Assad is supported by the Shia minority in Syria, while the opposition come from the almost exclusively Sunni majority.

In her speech, given at the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque in Oman, Baroness Warsi said such divisions were rarely confronted but posed “a great danger to faith and our world”. “The hatred that can exist between sects – between people who follow the same God – disturbs and saddens me,” she said.

“And even in Britain we are not immune from it. With division being preached by some, and belittling another’s faith or denomination being used as a way of reaffirming one’s own. Often the strongest condemnation seems to be reserved for your brother or sister in faith.” » | Oliver Wright | Tuesday, February 18, 2014

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Warsi warns of sectarian threat: Religious sectarianism “threat to world” says Baroness Warsi » | Matthew Holehouse, Political Correspondent | Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Warsi: Britons More Worldly Than Americans

Baroness Warsi, Minister for Faith

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: America is not as “sophisticated” as Britain in understanding international relations, Baroness Warsi says

America is not as “sophisticated” as Britain in understanding international relations, Baroness Warsi said today.

The minister for faith, on a visit to America, also said the conservative Fox News channel needed training on “religious literacy”.

The blunt remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington DC caused a flutter on social media networks after being picked up by the liberal Huffington Post website.

“I think Britain is quite uniquely sophisticated in its understanding of the world in a way the US is not,” she said.

“That comes from much of our own history and much of our connection.” » | Peter Foster, in Washington | Friday, November 15, 2013

Baroness Warsi: Extremists Are Driving Christians Out of Their Homelands. We Must Act

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Terrorist violence against Christians has put the very survival of the religion in some regions in peril. We cannot stand idle, says Baroness Warsi.

There are parts of the world today where to be a Christian is to put your life in danger. From continent to continent, Christians are facing discrimination, ostracism, torture, even murder, simply for the faith they follow. The pages of this newspaper regularly chart the plight of the persecuted, from the scores of worshippers killed recently by bombers at All Saints Church in Pakistan to the Coptic congregation sprayed with bullets by gunmen in Egypt.

Christian populations are plummeting and the religion is being driven out of some of its historic heartlands. There is even talk of Christianity becoming extinct in places where it has existed for generations – where the faith was born. In Iraq, the Christian community has fallen from 1.2 million in 1990 to 200,000 today. In Syria, the horrific bloodshed has masked the haemorrhaging of its Christian population.

Perpetrators range from states to terrorists to people's neighbours. And victimhood is not exclusive to Christians; Hazara Shias in Pakistan, Baha'is in Iran, Rohingya Muslims in Burma – all have long been singled out and hounded out because of the faith they follow.

While religious persecution may not be a new concept, today the fault lines between faiths and within faiths are ever more volatile. Collective punishment is becoming more common, with people being attacked for the alleged crimes, connections or connotations of their coreligionists, often in response to events taking place thousands of miles away.

This has become a global crisis, and in Washington D.C. today I will be making the case for an international response. Speaking at Georgetown University and the Council on Foreign Relations, I want to call for cross-faith, cross-continent unity on this issue – for a response which isn't itself sectarian. Because a bomb going off in a Pakistani church shouldn't just reverberate through Christian communities; it should stir the world. » | Baroness Warsi *, Minister for Faith | Thursday, November 14, 2013

* Baroness Warsi is Senior Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office & the UK’s first Minister for Faith. Follow her on twitter @sayeedawarsi

Related »

Christians 'Face Extinction' amid Sectarian Terror, Minister Warns

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Exclusive: violence against Christian minorities is now a "global crisis" as worshippers are driven out of their ancient homelands by militants, a senior minister warns

Christianity is in danger of becoming extinct in its ancient homelands because of a rising tide of sectarian attacks, a senior minister will warn on Friday.

Violence against Christian worshippers and other religious minorities by fanatics has become a “global crisis” and is the gravest challenge facing the world this century, Baroness Warsi will say.

“A mass exodus is taking place, on a Biblical scale. In some places, there is a real danger that Christianity will become extinct,” she will say at a speech at Georgetown University in Washington.

In the new year, Lady Warsi, the Minister for Faith who sits in the Cabinet, will host an international summit to draw up a plan to end the violence against Christians - particularly in the countries where the faith was born.

Writing for Telegraph.co.uk, Lady Warsi highlights the bombing of All Saints Church in Pakistan, killing 85 congregants, in September and the gun attack on a Coptic wedding party in Egypt as the latest outrages by militants who have turned “religion upon religion, sect upon sect”.

“There are parts of the world today where to be a Christian is to put your life in danger,” she writes. “From continent to continent, Christians are facing discrimination, ostracism, torture, even murder, simply for the faith they follow.

“Christian populations are plummeting and the religion is being driven out of some of its historic heartlands. In Iraq, the Christian community has fallen from 1.2m in 1990 to 200,000 today. In Syria, the horrific bloodshed has masked the haemorrhaging of its Christian population,” she says. » | Matthew Holehouse, Political Correspondent | Thursday, November 14, 3013

Baroness Warsi on Islamophobia and Muslim Attacks

HT: Islam versus Europe »

Fewer Than One In Four People Think Islam Is Compatible With British Life, Faith Minister Warns

MAIL ONLINE: Baroness Warsi accuses critics of Islam of being 'un-British' / She points to polling which shows just 24% think Islam is compatible with being British and 23% ay it is not a threat to Western civilisation

Fewer than one in four British voters believes Islam is compatible with the British way of life, the UK's first Muslim woman Cabinet Minister reveals today.

Baroness Warsi will quote private police figures which show that more than half of race hate attacks in Britain are against Muslims as she condemns critics of Islam for peddling 'hate'.

Lady Warsi sparked huge controversy two years ago when she said Britain's approach to Muslims has made Islamophobia acceptable at middle class dinner parties.

But in a new speech today she accuses critics of Islam of being 'un-British' themselves by grouping ordinary Muslims with extremists.

The Minister for Faith and Communities reveals stark polling conducted by YouGov which found that just 24 per cent of voters think Islam is compatible with being British, while more than half disagree. Only 23 per cent say Islam is not a threat to Western civilisation.

An unrepentant Lady Warsi, whose parents emigrated from Pakistan, said that she was right to speak out before and will use the new evidence to warn that the 'underlying, unfounded mistrust' of Muslims is fuelling extremism. Read on and comment » | Tim Shipman | Thursday, January 24, 2013

Baroness Warsi and the 'Extremist'
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Baroness Warsi, the Conservative Party chairman, faces fresh questions over her business partner.

The peer is under investigation over her undeclared links to Abid Hussain, a relative by marriage with whom she is involved in a catering business.

However, there were calls last week for the inquiry, ordered by David Cameron, the Prime Minister, to be widened after Mr Hussain admitted that he had been involved in Hizb ut-Tahrir, a radical Islamist party that the Conservatives had pledged to ban.

In his first public statement, Mr Hussain said that he had attended its meetings, although he said he had never been a “member”, and had not told Lady Warsi about his involvement.

She has previously said she was unaware of his activities.

There were also questions over one of the trips to Pakistan by Lady Warsi on which she was accompanied by Mr Hussain. » | Jason Lewis, Investigations Editor | Saturday, June 09, 2012

Baroness Warsi's West London Landlord Claims She Never Paid Rent
Dr Wafik Moustafa, who owns the west London house that Baroness Warsi stayed in, says the Conservative co-chair did not pay rent and it was never discussed.

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Tory peer Baroness Warsi faces police inquiry over expenses: Baroness Warsi was is facing calls for a police investigation into her parliamentary expenses after she claimed up to £2,000 for staying rent-free in the home of a Tory party donor. » | Rowena Mason, and Martin Evans | Sunday, May 27, 2012

Profile: Sayeeda Warsi, the trailblazing peer who divided the Tory party: Conservative Party co-chairman Baroness Warsi was the first Muslim woman to be appointed a Cabinet minister. »

Cabinet Minister Baroness Warsi Admits Breaking Cash Rules

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: David Cameron suffered a fresh political blow last night when the Conservative party chairman admitted that she failed to declare a source of income for more than a year.

Baroness Warsi said did not tell House of Lords authorities that she was receiving rental income from a London property she had bought and rented out.

She made an apology today over the breach of parliamentary guidelines, blaming “an oversight, for which I take full responsibility,” but claimed that she had paid tax on the income.

The disclosure is the latest in a series of crises to hit Mr Cameron in the last few weeks. It comes as the political future of Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, is called into question once again. » | Saturday, May 26, 2012

Baroness Warsi: Some Pakistani Men Think Young White Girls Are "Fair Game" for Sex Abuse

LONDON EVENING STANDARD: Some Pakistani men believe “white girls are fair game” for sexual abuse, the Cabinet Minister and Tory co-chairman Baroness Warsi says today.

In an exclusive interview Sayeeda Warsi, Britain’s most senior Muslim politician, calls on mosques and community leaders to condemn “a small minority” of their members with racist and sexist views.

“There is a small minority of Pakistani men who believe that white girls are fair game,” she told the Evening Standard. “And we have to be prepared to say that. You can only start solving a problem if you acknowledge it first.”

Her comments follow the horrific Rochdale sexual grooming case, in which a gang of Pakistani men preyed on young white girls. Lady Warsi is the most senior political leader to say publicly that racist and misogynistic attitudes in sections of the community were partly responsible for what happened.

“This small minority who see women as second class citizens, and white women probably as third class citizens, are to be spoken out against,” she said. Baroness Warsi, a 41-year-old former lawyer who in 2010 became the first Muslim woman to sit in Cabinet, decided to break her silence on the controversy to encourage other leaders of the community to speak up and change attitudes. » | Joe Murphy | Friday, May 18, 2012

Read the full interview »

Related »

Baroness Warsi's Strike at 'Secular Fundamentalists' as She Meets Pope

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Baroness Warsi has hit out at "secular fundamentalists" as she met the Pope and concluded an historic visit of British ministers to the Vatican.

The Cabinet Office minister and chairman of the Conservative Party gave Benedict XVI a personal gift during a 20-minute private audience – a gold-plated cube that opens up to reveal 99 tiny cubes, each inscribed with a reference to Allah.

In keeping with the theme of interfaith dialogue, she also gave him a copy of the Koran which was translated by an East European Jew who converted to Islam and helped write Pakistan's constitution.

"They were personal gifts from me," Baroness Warsi, the first female Muslim cabinet minister, told The Daily Telegraph at the Vatican on Wednesday.

She also presented the pontiff with a letter from David Cameron, the Prime Minister, a message from the Queen and a copy of the King James Bible.

"He thanked me for the comments I've made. He said he was glad I was making the case for faith. He was intrigued by the cube and I thought as I showed it to him 'Oh my God I'm going to break it'," the minister said.

Baroness Warsi expanded on a speech she gave in Rome on Tuesday, and an article she wrote for The Daily Telegraph, that British society was under threat from a rising tide of "militant secularisation" and that Europe needs to be "more confident in its Christianity".

Speaking after her meeting with the Pope, she said: "Secular fundamentalists are saying that people of faith shouldn't have a voice in the public sphere. I'm saying faith should be one of many voices, it should be part of the debate."

She criticised the arguments of Richard Dawkins, the outspoken atheist, as "false". » | Nick Squires, the Vatican | Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Is Religion Really Under Threat?

THE GUARDIAN: People with faith say secularism has become an aggressive and intolerant force in Britain. What has gone wrong? It should bring society together

A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of secularism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: the pope, politicians from both the Conservative and Labour parties, Melanie Phillips ...

It seems odd to borrow the opening words of Marx and Engel's the Communist Manifesto to describe secularism and to find them so apt. For someone such as myself who has always seen the secularist ideal as the most benign legacy of the Enlightenment, it's a bit like discovering that your cuddly teddy bear is being portrayed as a rampaging grizzly.

But there is no doubt that secularism is increasingly seen as a threat to liberty rather than its stoutest defender. Conservative party chairman Lady Warsi is the latest to raise the alarm, speaking of her "fear" that "a militant secularisation is taking hold of our societies". She pulls no punches in claiming that "at its core and in its instincts it is deeply intolerant" and that it "demonstrates similar traits to totalitarian regimes".

Pretty much the same message came from Labour's David Lammy on Friday's Any Questions? on Radio 4, when he attacked "an aggressive secularism that is drowning out the ability of people of faith to live with that faith".

Warsi is taking this message to the pope, which is a bit like taking pizza to Napoli. In the pontiff's 2010 visit to the UK, he also railed against "aggressive forms of secularism", likening it to the evils of Nazism and claiming that "the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society".

Other clerics have followed suit. The leader of the Catholic church in Scotland, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, used his last Easter sermon to decry the "aggressive secularism" that tries to "destroy our Christian heritage and culture and take God from the public square".

And the list of those who have said similar things is endless. But just what is that people are so terrified of? Is secularism really a threat, or has it simply been distorted, by its critics, its defenders, or both? Read on and comment » | Julian Baggini | Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Baroness Warsi: Religious Confidence Helps Britain Attack 'Persecutors' Abroad
Britain must be confident in its own religious beliefs so that it can attack those "persecuting" people abroad, Baroness Warsi [will] warn[s] in a speech at the Vatican.

Read the article and comment here | Robert Winnett, Political Editor | Tuesday, February 14, 2012
My comment:

There is something surreal about a Muslimah going to the Vatican on behalf of Christian Great Britain to preach about the need for Christians to rediscover their Judaeo-Christian roots.

If there is a war on British society, it is from her co-religionists, not "militant secularists". Indeed, across the world, it isn't "militant secularists" who are waging war at all; rather it is Muslims hell-bent on making all before them submit to the will of Allah (whoever the hell he is)! And furthermore: Who is doing the persecuting? None other than her brothers and sisters in Islam!

Methinks this woman needs a reality check. – © Mark

This comment appears here too.

Britain Being Overtaken [sic: Taken Over] by 'Militant Secularists', Says Baroness Warsi

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: British society is under threat from the rising tide of “militant secularisation” reminiscent of “totalitarian regimes”, a Cabinet minister will warn on Tuesday.

In an historic visit to the Vatican, Baroness Warsi will express her “fear” about the marginalisation of religion throughout Britain and Europe, saying that faith needs “a seat at the table in public life”.

In an article for The Daily Telegraph, the Cabinet Office minister says that to create a “more just society” Britons must “feel stronger in their religious identities”.

The minister, who is also chairman of the Conservative Party, says: “My fear today is that a militant secularisation is taking hold of our societies. We see it in any number of things: when signs of religion cannot be displayed or worn in government buildings; and where religion is sidelined, marginalised and downgraded in the public sphere.

“For me, one of the most worrying aspects about this militant secularisation is that at its core and in its instincts it is deeply intolerant. It demonstrates similar traits to totalitarian regimes – denying people the right to a religious identity because they were frightened of the concept of multiple identities.”

Baroness Warsi leads an unprecedented government delegation to the Vatican where she will be received by Pope Benedict for a private audience on Wednesday.

She will be the first foreign minister to deliver an address to the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, which trains Papal diplomats, and the party will stay in the Santa Marta, an official residence in the Vatican for visiting cardinals.

The visit, to mark the 30th anniversary of the re-establishment of full diplomatic ties between Britain and the Vatican, follows the Pope’s successful visit to Britain in 2010 when he is said to have been impressed by the Government’s outspoken defence of the importance of religion in public life.

The speech represents one of the most strident defences of the importance of religion by a serving British minister. It comes days after the High Court ruled that local councils could not hold prayers during meetings. There have also been recent cases of public sector workers being banned from displaying Christian symbols at work.

David Cameron welcomed the visit. He said: “Our relationship with the Holy See is an important one and it speaks powerfully of the positive contribution faith can make to all societies. » | Robert Winnett, Political Editor | Monday, February 13, 2012

Multiculturalism: Sadiq Khan Smears David Cameron
MAIL ON SUNDAY: A major row over Islamic extremism erupted last night after Labour accused David Cameron of being a far-Right ‘propagandist’.

Sadiq Khan made the incendiary remark in response to an outspoken speech by the Prime Minister attacking ‘state multiculturalism’, calling for a stronger British identity and signalling a crackdown on Muslim groups.

Mr Khan, the Shadow Justice Secretary, infuriated Downing Street by claiming that Mr Cameron was ‘writing propaganda for the English Defence League’. The EDL is an anti-Islamist street protest movement that numbers BNP supporters among its members.

Labour MPs then weighed in by accusing Mr Cameron of inflammatory timing for making his speech on the day when the EDL was marching in Luton.

But Tory Chairman Baroness Warsi described Mr Khan’s remarks as an attempt to ‘smear’ the Prime Minister as a Right-wing extremist.

‘This is outrageous and irresponsible,’ she said.

‘David Cameron has made it clear he wants to unite Britain around our common values, and he has done so in measured language.

'It is right that we make it clear: extremism and Islam are not the same thing. Mr Khan ran Ed Miliband’s leadership campaign. He must apologise and Mr Miliband needs to disown his colleague’s baseless accusation.’ Fury as Labour ‘smears’ David Cameron after he attacks multiculturalism >>> Glen Owen | Sunday, February 06, 2011