Ed's Islamophobia..........

Maybe it’s because the entire nation has a nasty dose of election fatigue but it is surprising that there has not  been a more vociferous and hostile reaction to Miliband’s latest  vote-catching stunt.

 

To ingratiate himself with Muslim voters, he promises to criminalise ‘Islamophobia’.

 

He said : ‘We are going to make it an aggravated crime. We are going to make sure it is marked on people's records with the police to make sure they root out Islamophobia as a hate crime. We are going to change the law on this so we make it absolutely clear … our abhorrence of hate crime and Islamophobia.

 

He has been here before.

 

The 2006 Racial and Religious Hatred Act, the most serious attack on freedom of speech in memory, was to have carried a clause that would have criminalised ‘deliberately insulting religion’ (and it is obvious that for ‘religion’ we should read ‘Islam’). This was defeated so we are left with the still-oppressive 2006 Act.

 

Now Ed wants to make it even more draconian.

 

He goes on to say that ‘the police will record Islamophobic attacks right across the country." Not in the case of anti-Semitism, of course; Muslims only are to be protected. So of this  comes to pass, we can expect no further police enquiries into abduction and rape of under-age girls by Pakistanis. It will be ‘open season’ for these crimes and no doubt a good many others.

 

And quite what does Ed mean?

 

‘Islamophobia’ is a  stranger to the OED.

 

To the non-Muslim, there is a clear distinction between ‘Muslim’ and ‘Islamic’. ‘Muslim’ is you charming Pakistani doctor or nice Mr Zia who runs the shop and post office, and whose kids are at the same school as yours. ‘Islam’ conjures up ISIS, Al Qaeda, 7/11 and terrorism as a political culture.

 

A ‘phobia’ is an irrational, abnormal; fear of something. It is a state of mind. So there you have it. Ed wants to take another step to ‘1984’ by creating ‘thought-crime’.

 

Vote Ed, get Orwell!