Religion is a Mental Illness

Suella Braverman: We do not have blasphemy laws in Great Britain

There has been understandable alarm throughout the country about recent events at Kettlethorpe High School in Wakefield. I share it. West Yo

thetimes.co.uk

There has been understandable alarm throughout the country about recent events at Kettlethorpe High School in Wakefield. I share it. West Yorkshire police recorded a non-crime hate incident after a boy dropped a copy of the Quran, which appeared to have been scuffed. The mother of the boy has said he is autistic. Appallingly, he has received death threats and there has been considerable unrest.

I have already indicated my deep concern about this case and the way it has been handled, but it raises a number of broader issues.

The education sector and police have a duty to prioritise the physical safety of children over the hurt feelings of adults. Schools answer to pupils and parents. They do not have to answer to self-appointed community activists. I will work with the Department for Education to issue new guidance spelling this out.

Instead, a disturbing video showed a meeting — which looked more like a sharia law trial, inappropriately held at a mosque instead of a neutral setting, whereby the mother of one boy was made to account for his behaviour in front of an all-male crowd.

We do not have blasphemy laws in Great Britain, and must not be complicit in the attempts to impose them on this country. There is no right not to be offended. There is no legal obligation to be reverent towards any religion. The lodestar of our democracy is freedom of speech. Nobody can demand respect for their belief system, even if it is a religion. People are legally entitled to reject — and to leave — any religion. There is no apostasy law in this country. The act of accusing someone of apostasy or blasphemy is effectively inciting violence upon that person.

Everyone who lives here has to accept this country’s pluralism and freedom of speech and belief. One person’s freedom to, for example, convert from Islam to Christianity is the same freedom that allows a Muslim to say that Jesus was a prophet but not God Incarnate.

This freedom is absolute. It doesn’t vary case by case. It can’t be disapplied at a local level. And no one living in this country can legitimately claim that this doesn’t apply to them because they belong to a different tradition.

All of this is typically understood. If I told a socialist they should politely endorse my sincerely held conservative beliefs, he or she would laugh in my face — and rightly so. Roman Catholics readily understand that people are going to criticise the Pope or mock the concept of transubstantiation.

Yet things are going in the wrong direction. We see that in the monstrous way that JK Rowling and others have been treated for daring to challenge radical gender ideology. And there is a particular issue with attitudes towards Islam.

The overwhelming majority of Muslims are tolerant, peaceful and embrace our values. But some Muslims and non-Muslims alike — as well as Islamist extremists — believe that Islam should enjoy a special status, protected from disrespect.

There is a long, ignoble history of that, which goes back at least as far as the furore over The Satanic Verses. It is rooted in a view — actually a bigoted one — that Muslims are uniquely incapable of controlling themselves if they feel provoked. And it has excused agitators using fear to force people to bend to their demands.

In June last year, a cinema chain cancelled all UK screenings of The Lady of Heaven after threatening behaviour by groups of Muslim men outside cinemas. A teacher from Batley who showed his students a Charlie Hebdo cartoon of Muhammad is still living in hiding, following angry protests outside the school and online threats from local community leaders.

The way to ensure community cohesion and peace is not to cave into bullies, nor to demand that people aren’t “unnecessarily offensive”. The right approach is to defend our pluralist, free society very robustly indeed.

I am not happy with the way non-crime hate incidents are recorded and I will soon be announcing new guidance for police.

Timidity does not make us safer; it weakens us. A fear of being seen as “Islamophobic” led to the grooming gangs scandal. It led the Prevent counterterrorism programme to fail to recognise the scale of the threat of Islamist extremism, to deny the individual culpability of extremists, and actively to co-operate with extremist groups. It fails to protect people from the mob.

Enough. It is high time for leaders — real leaders, not self-appointed hot-heads — to stand up for our free society. It is this country’s sacred promise to everyone who lives here, whatever their background. Every organisation that answers to me as home secretary will be in no doubt of where I stand.

Suella Braverman is home secretary