Nigel Farage condemned over call to ban public prayer for Muslims in the UK | Nigel Farage
Muslim leaders have condemned Nigel Farage’s call to ban public Muslim worship in the UK as bigotry and warned of a “growing wave of hatred” after Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch questioned whether the events conformed to the “norms of British culture”.
While making these statements, Farage was speaking at the launch of the Reform United Kingdom manifesto for the Scottish parliamentary elections to be held in England.
He described the event in Trafalgar Square earlier this week, where hundreds of Muslims and people of other faiths prayed together ahead of Eid celebrations, as “a wake-up call and a warning for everyone”.
He said the event, organized by the Ramadan Tent Project and attended by London Mayor Sadiq Khan, was “a clear, deliberate, deliberate attempt, not for the private practice of a different religion, but an attempt to take over, intimidate and dominate our way of life”.
The event has been held five times before in the historic square in central London. without incident or previous discussion.
Asked by a reporter whether he wanted such events to be banned in the future, he replied: “We don’t want to stop individuals from praying, but public prayer is banned in many Muslim countries in the Middle East. So yes, we should stop these kinds of mass demonstrations, provocative demonstrations in historic British venues.”
Such restrictions vary from country to country and may be related to political or religious tensions or public safety.
Former prime minister and SNP MSP Humza Yousaf said: “Nigel Farage appears to have no problem with Christian prayer, Hannukah, Vaisakhi or Diwali being celebrated in Trafalgar Square. He only has a problem with Muslims praying. There’s a word for it: bigotry.”
Yousaf, the UK’s first Muslim prime minister, added: “While I would expect nothing less from a charlatan like Nigel Farage, I am angry and disappointed that the likes of Nick Timothy MP, a member of Her Majesty’s opposition, are bringing such rhetoric into the mainstream.”
Badenoch backed shadow justice secretary Timothy after he claimed public Islamic prayers were frightening and un-British; Labor said the Conservatives were embracing the “empty” politics of prejudice.
Asked if he agreed with Timothy that the main concern about the event was that prayers were separated for men and women, Badenoch said: “This debate that Nick is having is not about freedom of religion. It is about how religion is expressed in a shared public space and whether those expressions conform to the norms of British culture.”
Scottish Labor Party leader Anas Sarwar said Farage’s remarks were an example of his “toxic, toxic politics”. “The Farage circus has come to town and shown once again that he is a cynical opportunist who wants to divide us. Reforms have only failed in the Conservative Party and have offered nothing for Scotland.”
Latest opinion polls show Reform neck-and-neck or ahead of Scottish Labor, but on Thursday Ipsos’ Scottish Political Pulse poll suggested Reform’s popularity was waning.
Shaista Gohir, a partner at the UK Muslim Women’s Network, said: “When these gatherings are run responsibly – without blocking roads, without causing disruption and with appropriate safety measures – why are some politicians trying to ban them?”
“The answer is simple: They object to seeing them. This reflects a deep-seated hatred of Muslims. No other faith community faces similar scrutiny or hostility from these politicians as Muslims do.”
Akeela Ahmed, chief executive of the British Muslim Trust, warned that British Muslims “must not become a political football”.
“Words have consequences – and those who truly believe in the British values of tolerance, equality before the law and freedom of religion must not allow these values to be brushed aside in order to marginalize British Muslims.”
Farage was speaking to a raucous audience of about 500 supporters at a golf club near Glasgow as he and his party’s Scottish leader, Malcolm Offord, introduced candidates for Holyrood elections in May, in which Reform UK will nominate candidates in all seats.
Offord, who published a manifesto promising that a reformed UK would “make Scotland the most successful part of the UK”, said Scots were “forced to pay the highest taxes anywhere in the UK” and reiterated his promise to scrap Scotland’s six-band income tax system, in which high earners pay significantly more.
Offord said concerns about social cohesion in Glasgow, the UK’s largest shelter distribution area after London, were “not something we made up” and promised the manifesto would restrict who could apply for homeless support in the city.
The manifesto also promised to scrap all the SNP government’s net zero-related targets, subsidies and quangos.
