While British Jews celebrate Labour’s landslide loss, British Muslims claim that Boris Johnson’s “Islamophobia” will drive them from the country.
Baroness Sayeeda Hussain Warsi, a Muslim and a member of the House of Lords and former co-chair of Johnson’s Conservative Party, tweeted her concern that Johnson’s victory, though seemingly good for the Jews, endangered other minorities.
My Jewish brothers and sisters will hopefully sleep easier tonight
But many other minorities will still wake up anxious
Tomorrow I hope and pray we will all build stronger alliances with British Muslims and others to tackle all forms of racism in all political parties https://t.co/xJFK52SXek— Sayeeda Warsi (@SayeedaWarsi) December 12, 2019
Warsi has been criticized by the left-wing for opposing educating children about homosexuality and for giving credence to right-wing concerns about links between immigration and crime. She decries the persecution of Christians and has been targeted by Muslim extremists for “not being a proper Muslim.” The Islamic State (ISIS) targeted her by publicly declaring her an apostate. She resigned her post during the 2014 Israel-Gaza war. Warsi called for an arms embargo on Israel. She has been expressing concerns about anti-Islamic prejudice in the Conservative party for several years.
Several responses to Warsi’s tweet accused Johnson of enabling the rise of the far-right.
In another tweet, she called for a government inquiry into Islamophobia.
My Party must start healing its relationship with British Muslims
Endorsements from #TommyRobinson & #KatieHopkins & colleagues retweeting both is deeply disturbing
Independent Inquiry into #Islamophobia is a must first step
The battle to root out racism must now intensify https://t.co/ztK4ICpmNX— Sayeeda Warsi (@SayeedaWarsi) December 12, 2019
In fact, Johnson acknowledged this concern last month.
We are going to have an independent inquiry into Islamophobia, antisemitism, every manner of prejudice and discrimination and it will start before Christmas,” Johnson announced.
The Muslim Council of Britain, the UK’s largest Muslim campaign organization, released a statement on Friday addressing their concerns about the new government.
“Mr. Johnson commands a majority, but there is a palpable sense of fear amongst Muslim communities around the country. We entered the election campaign period with long-standing concerns about bigotry in our politics and our governing party. Now we worry that Islamophobia is ‘oven-ready’ for the government.”
In 2005, Johnson wrote in the Spectator that he believed it was only “natural” for the public to be scared of Islam.
“To any non-Muslim reader of the Koran, Islamophobia — fear of Islam — seems a natural reaction, and, indeed, exactly what that text is intended to provoke,” he wrote.
“Judged purely on its scripture — to say nothing of what is preached in the mosques — it is the most viciously sectarian of all religions in its heartlessness towards unbelievers.”
After the London Bombings, a series of coordinated Islamist terrorist attacks in London that killed 52 and wounded over 700, Johnson addressed the Muslim nature of the attacks.
“It will take a huge effort of courage and skill to win round the many thousands of British Muslims who are in a similar state of alienation, and to make them see that their faith must be compatible with British values and with loyalty to Britain,” he wrote. “That means disposing of the first taboo, and accepting that the problem is Islam. Islam is the problem.”
He added: “What is going on in these mosques and madrasas? When is someone going to get 18th century on Islam’s medieval ass?”
Comments he made last year to the Equalities Commission were slightly less bombastic but no less offensive to Muslims.
“It is absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes,” adding that any female student who appeared at school or in a lecture “looking like a bank robber” should be asked to remove it.
Metro, a British news service, cited Manzoor Ali, who runs Barakah Food Aid to help Manchester’s homeless.
‘I’m scared for my personal safety, I worry about my children’s future,” Ali said.
“British Muslims have started the process of leaving the UK,” he added, noting that he had his family’s blessings to leave and was considering New Zealand appealed to him because of the compassionate manner in which Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern handled the aftermath of the Christchurch mosque shootings in which 51 people were killed by a far-right terrorist.
It is important to note that the Labour Party and Corbyn himself were accused of anti-Semitism. The Simon Weisenthal Center (SWC), a Jewish human rights organization, announced on Saturday that Corby’ns Labour party was the year’s worst global anti-Semitic incident.
“In a year awash with anti-Semitism on both sides of the Atlantic, no one has done more to mainstream anti-Semitism” in a democratic country than the U.K.’s Labour Party under Corbyn’s leadership, the Simon Wiesenthal Center wrote in a list of “2019 top ten worst anti-Semitic incidents.”
The SWC listing was significant as it placed Corbyn above John Earnest, a white supremacist gunman accused of opening fire inside the Poway synagogue in California in April, killing one.
Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth, published an article prior to the election in The Times in which he questioned the future of Jews in his country.
“The question I am now most frequently asked is: What will become of Jews and Judaism in Britain if the Labour Party forms the next government? This anxiety is justified,” Mirvis wrote. “It is a failure to see this as a human problem rather than a political one. It is a failure of culture. It is a failure of leadership. A new poison – sanctioned from the top – has taken root in the Labour Party.”
The rabbi’s assessment seems to be accurate as a poll conducted for The Jewish Chronicle in 2018 concluded that almost 40 percent of British Jews would “seriously consider emigrating” if Corbyn were to become prime minister.
