Last month, a man who burned a copy of the Quran was found guilty of a religiously aggravated public order offence. Clearly, his action was in poor taste, but I believe it should not have been a criminal offence, and that Parliament never intended that it would be.

The Government is consulting on a definition of Islamophobia. Quite rightly the preface to the consultation document states that “Any proposed definition must be compatible with the unchanging right of the UK’s people to exercise freedom of speech and expression – which includes the right to criticise, express dislike of, or insult religions and/or the beliefs and practices of adherents.”

I am not reassured. The danger is that blasphemy laws are creeping in by the back door, through public order offences, where the expression and actions of those who criticise the Muslim religion are deemed to cause ‘harassment, alarm and distress’ .

The Public Order Act 1986 is being misused—far beyond the intent of Parliament—to police what we can and cannot say about Islam.
Part 3 of the Act created new offences relating to racial hatred, and this was later amended to include religious hatred. Nevertheless, Part 3  clearly states “Nothing in this Part shall be read or given effect in a way which prohibits or restricts discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents”.
So, clearly, the Public Order Act was never intended to become a blasphemy law.

Ever since the violent furore that followed publication of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, public conversation about Islam has been muted by self-censorship in fear of a violent response by those who are offended. But In a free society nobody should have right not to be offended.
Nevertheless, charges have been brought for causing “distress” to the “religious institution of Islam” and making the author responsible for the violent reaction of those who will not tolerate the opinions of others.
The Public Order Act is being used to prohibit us from saying what we like about religion: A person may be found guilty because of the violent reaction of those offended.
 From Sir Salman Rushdie to the Batley teacher still in hiding with his family, the threat of violence is what lies behind these attempts to use the Public order Act as new blasphemy law.

The problem is that the guarantee of freedom to criticise religions, which I quoted from part 3 of the Act, only applies in Part 3 -the part that deals with  racial  and religious hatred.
Parliament never thought Part 1 of the Act, which makes it an offence to cause “harassment, alarm or distress” by using “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour” would be used to criminalise the expression of opinions about religious belief. But that is exactly what is now happening.

A definition of Islamophobia it will make matters much worse whatever its intent.
To defend our religious liberty and freedom of expression it is vital that we clarify the law to stop the misuse of the Public Order Act by the courts.

A couple of days ago I received a letter headed with a large, coloured logo ‘REPAIR’, giving a time and place for a meeting at Westminster.  At first glance I thought it was advertising one of those sessions where you can take along something broken and get it fixed -Just like the excellent group that meets regularly at the Avonway Community Centre in Fordingbridge. On closer inspection however, it turned out to be a meeting to discuss the demand for reparations to be paid by the United Kingdom to Caribbean nations for our part in the Slave Trade.
This was the same agenda about which the Prime Minister was ambushed at the Commonwealth summit in Samoa last October.

That the slave trade was a despicable business is uncontested. Equally, that the UK enterprises and individuals participated in it and profited from it, is also uncontested.
Nevertheless, it was Britain that led the way by abolishing the Slave trade in 1807, and slavery throughout the Empire in 1833. We used our naval power to impose our own abolition of the trade on the rest of the World: 13% of the Royal Navy’s manpower was assigned to the West Africa Anti-Slavery Command. Historians have called that endeavour “the most expensive example of moral action”

It is wholly impractical to try to undo the wrongs over so many generations.
The demand to do so, is based on the assumption that both individuals and nations still suffer from the legacy of the Slave Trade. Comparisons however, between per capita incomes in the Caribbean and West Africa simply do not bear this out.

Leading the charge for reparations is our own Church of England, which has launched its own ‘Spire Project’ to pay initial grants for £100 million, with an aspiration eventually to reach £1 Billion. This is against a background of parishes for which clergy cannot be afforded, and where the taxpayer is being asked to subsidise repairs to church buildings.
The premise on which the project is founded, is that Queen Anne’s Bounty (the amount given in 1703 to pay for parish ministry) was funded by investments in slaver enterprises.  This is false: the Bounty was funded by investments in annuities and the profits paid were afforded from Government tax revenues.

Of course, individual churchmen were involved in slavery. We regard this now as horrifying, but at the time it was commonplace. Slavery was universal, even freed slaves owned slaves.
The Church’s position does not take account of the fact that it was the Church itself, together with individual churchmen, that led the great campaign to abolish slavery and who subsequently expended blood and treasure in the effort to supress it.

Why should we be overly concerned by the Church misappropriating funds properly intended to fund its own parish ministry?
The reality is that this is the leading initiative in a much wider endeavour designed to put similar pressure on other institutions and ultimately on all of us as taxpayers. The opening demand for which is the mind-boggling sum of £15-£18 Trillion.

Rishi Sunak, when Prime Minister, made it clear that UK will not contemplate paying reparations.
We will have to see if the present Labour Government will stand firm. Reading the runes, it’s not reassuring.

Rather than having specific legislation to change abortion law, almost every crime bill which has come before Parliament over the last few years, has presented the opportunity to a dedicated group of enthusiasts, to use each such bill to try to amend abortion law. Hitherto they have largely been seen off….Until now.

 The fundamental shift in the make up of the Commons that took place at the last election changed everything. Notwithstanding that abortion is a ‘conscience’ issue where the party whip is absent, all but four Conservatives voted against changing the law on Tuesday night. On that day, The Commons, by a majority of 242, made a major change to abortion law, without any of the procedural checks which normally precede such changes. There were no evidence hearings, nor any pre-legislative scrutiny of a draft bill, nor any sessions in a standing committee. Instead, just 46 minutes of a Back-Bench debate and a winding-up speech by a Minister (herself a previous leader of attempts to amend abortion law) who refused even to take interventions.

The consequence of the amendment is profound: it will no longer be illegal for a woman to carry out her own abortion at home, for any reason, at any gestation, up to birth.
It will remain a punishable criminal offence for any provider, clinician or other individual to assist her, but she is free of any criminal penalty when she does it herself. And in the days of ‘tele-medicine’ this will present little difficulty: Since the pandemic you can order medicine to abort a pregnancy over the telephone, without any face-to-face consultation and without any check to establish the length of gestation.
(An amendment to restore the pre-covid regime of face-to-face consultations with a doctor, before securing the abortion prescription was soundly defeated).

The debate centred on the rights of women to control their own bodies and the need to remove the prospect criminal penalty from vulnerable women.
But how many vulnerable women are coerced into abortions by controlling and abusive partners in the age of tele-medicine, unscrutinised by an appointment at the Doctor’s surgery?
Equally, the demand for absolute control of a woman over her own body, ignores the fact that, in pregnancy, there are two bodies that need to be considered. At what point in gestation does the child have rights too?
This key issue wasn’t even touched on in the short time that the debate lasted.

Profoundly shocking, was the great cheer of approval that went up when the vote was announced that the amendment had been carried.

“ Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not”  Matthew 2,17-18

The furore about the burka prompted by Reform’s new bi-election victor, Sarah Pochin, at Prime Minister’s questions, took almost everyone by surprise, especially her party chairman who promptly resigned. Though, having patched-up differences, he is now back again.

The issue had gone completely off the radar since Boris Johnson’s quip about women looking like letter boxes in 2018
(see my blog Somewhat Belated Burka Commentary )
 Prior to that, I hadn’t commented on the issue for a couple of years
(see The Burkinis of Barton-On-Sea)
It is a subject, though very much alive in France, but which had certainly gone off the boil in the UK.
My recollection is that It was Jack Straw, as Foreign Secretary in 2006,  who initiated the debate when he spoke of his discomfort when a fully veiled female attended one of his advice surgeries.

Of course, one would only really see a burka in Afghanistan. It is the billowing covering of the whole body, from head to foot, with only a tight mesh through which the wearer might view the world. What commentators and Ms Pochin are really referring to, is the niqab, a face covering which leaves the eyes exposed.  (Given, that the purpose of the garment is to promote female modesty I have often been amazed by the creativity of many wearers who really can make the most of their eyes!)

So, would I ban the burka or the niqab?
As a libertarian I am not disposed to ban anything that does not harm anyone else.
It certainly gives offence to many people, but in a society with freedom of expression, none of us has a right NOT to be offended
.
But, does it oppress women?
Is it a symbol of female subservience?
How many wearers do so really by free choice, or are they coerced by family and social pressure?
(On the other hand, I do recall one former female MP who went to Iran and found wearing the abaya a ‘liberating experience’)

These are legitimate questions, but a ban might well make the lives of wearers even less eligible: they might, instead, be encouraged not to go out at all. Equally, a ban may be perceived as an assault on Islamic tradition and, consequently,  lead to more wearers as acts of defiance or community solidarity.

In any event, how on earth would we enforce it?

My inclination is to live and let live: fashions change.
In my youth women always wore hats in Church, last Sunday I didn’t see a single one.
My wife still possesses a mantilla, a souvenir of her convent upbringing. Mercifully, she never wears it.

There is a perverse pleasure to be had by Watching the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, try to maintain her composure -her ‘move along, nothing to see her’ attitude- when questioned about illegal immigration.
It is such a contrast to the anger and venom she exhibited when questioning Conservative ministers about it from the Opposition side of the Commons.
She would rant about how Labour would work much more closely with France to ‘smash the gangs’ and to co-operate over returns, so that there would be no need for implementing the Rwanda scheme.
Now having repealed the Rwanda legislation (writing-off the investment before it even got started), she is scrabbling to find an alternative venue. The PM was humiliated in public when Albania announced it wouldn’t be there. Now, apparently, we are trying for Kosovo.
As for co-operation, performance by the French stopping a proportion of the boats has fallen sharply. Their police (for whom we are paying) just stand and watch.
The reality is that since Yvette Cooper took on the Job, all previous records have been broken by the number of boats and migrants now coming ashore.

If we are to solve this problem, illegal migrants must know that there is a probability that they will end up somewhere else. Labour has removed the possibility of that deterrent.
We need to restore a scheme to send them elsewhere, but we also need the certainty that we will not be stopped from doing so by the courts, in defence of their human rights. Last weekend, the hapless Lord Hermer, the Attorney General, announced that we are not even going to try

then prepare for War

The Defence Review was akin to a wish list sent to Santa, albeit a very sensible and worthy list, but a wish list nonetheless: No money was allocated, merely an ‘ambition’ .
Ambitions are rarely achieved. To be reassured, we need to see the hard cash.

What was reassuring however, was the almost universal commitment to nuclear deterrence. The Government was robust (notwithstanding that both the Deputy Prime Minister, and the Foreign Secretary voted against Trident renewal in the past -as did the Liberal Democrats, and it’s welcome that even they have now changed their minds). The only party entirely absent from the feast was Reform, perhaps  further indication of Farage’s admiration for Putin.

 The one country to disarm itself of nuclear weapons is Ukraine, which has not turned out well.
The purpose of nuclear weapons is to persuade a potential opponent not even to consider an attack. That opponent needs to know, not only that we will retaliate in any escalation to a nuclear exchange, but also that we have is no hesitation to make first use of them.
Alas, the government appears to be wobbling on this critically important point:

Hansard 2nd June Column 46
Sir Desmond Swayne
In pursuit of deterrence, will the Minister recommit to first use when either the strategic or tactical situation demands it?
Luke Pollard, Minister for the Armed Forces
If I read out our nuclear playbook at the Dispatch Box, the right hon. Gentleman would be one of the first people to raise concerns, so I decline that polite invitation to detail our nuclear strategy. That ambiguity is absolutely certain, but we do not have a first-strike policy, as he will know. As the only European NATO member to dedicate our nuclear deterrent in the defence of all NATO member states, we maintain that capacity not only in support of the United Kingdom. That is an important part of our collective deterrence.

The Enemy needs to be certain, ambiguity  just won’t do.

In Kipling’s poem he observed “the burnt fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire”.
I wonder that anyone who has witnessed political events for the last fifteen years could fall for the fantasy economics of Nigel Farage’s Reform programme announced only a few days ago.

Of course, I find myself often addressing students or sixth formers who weren’t politically aware when important events occurred. Also, many of my constituents have busy lives, balancing demanding jobs with any number of family commitments. Who can blame them if they barely catch a few headlines on the early evening news, when more pressing concerns crowd their consciousness?

But these are the facts as I recall them.
In 2010 the Conservative-led coalition government inherited the worst recession since the 1930ies. Included in this inheritance was a record government overspend funded by unsustainable borrowing. Cutting expenditure was vital to restore financial credibility. Together with the Liberal Democrats, setting aside party differences in the national interest, the coalition set about reducing the deficit. This policy was condemned as ‘austerity’. It was painful, but it worked.
Had we not undertaken those deep cuts we could never have had the credibility in the financial markets to borrow the billions necessary to sustain the economy through the Covid pandemic. Or, to cushion the effects of the huge increase in energy prices when Russia invaded Ukraine.
Clearly, these were two examples of times when Governments have to borrow in the face of emergencies, but their ability to do so depends on the financial credibility established in ordinary times by matching expenditure to tax revenue and paying down debt.
Our national debt, at some 100% of our income, together with the increasing  interest payments to service it, is largely the cost of having survived Covid and the energy crisis with the economy intact. But it is essential that the highest priority is attached to reducing the debt and eliminating the deficit in current finances.
In this context any offer of tax cuts has to be accompanied by a credible explanation of how they are to be paid for. The lesson of the disastrous Truss premiership was the promise of tax cuts, accompanied not by matched restraint in expenditure but, on the contrary, further borrowing and spending.

Despite this bitter experience and the lessons that it ought to have taught us, we find that Reform has moved sharply to the left in a bidding war with the Labour Party to outspend them on welfare by ending the two-child limit.
In addition, Reform has promised £80 billion of tax cuts, to be paid for by reducing waste, ‘wokery’, and scrapping  Net Zero.
The savings will be paltry and It is not entirely clear how much might be spared by cancelling Net Zero, given that most of it is to be driven by private sector investment.
In any event the Net Zero policy is, I believe, vital for our future security and prosperity. The difficulty with it is not one of principle, but of the nature and speed of its implementation.

In the end it comes down to this. Given our recent experience, are we really going to be taken-in by a politician offering us eye-watering tax cuts without the most detailed and credible explanation of how they are to be afforded?

…Britain loses

So, following the Government’s negotiations we have now agreed to give up our sovereignty of over the British Indian Ocean Territories, which are vital to national security, handing them to Mauritius, a country with strengthening ties to China and Russia, and then to lease them back for £9 billion. What sort of Madness is this?

Also announced this week is the Prime Minister’s ‘reset’ agreement with the European Union. This was the scheduled 5-year review of the terms on which we left the EU. It ought to have presented an opportunity for UK and Europe to benefit from amended terms to mutual benefit.

We started with a huge advantage: our fish.
For whatever reason, access to UK fishing waters has always been a top priority for the EU. Even when we were negotiating to join the Common Market back in 1970-71, when they had no common fisheries policy, they cobbled it together, at the last minute, making it the price of our joining.
Knowing, that fishing in UK waters was so important to them, we should have made it the first item to be agreed, and as such, the price of everything else that we were seeking. Instead, the Government repeated the earlier mistake of seeking agreements on other items first, only to be threatened at the, last minute. with complete collapse, unless their demand for fishing concessions be met.

The Prime Minister told the Commons that, having reached agreement, he rushed straight to Lidl, to be told by staff that they were ‘delighted’.
I have no idea what he told Lidl that they would be getting, because there is no detail in the agreement at all. Indeed, it is a set of agreements, rather than being an agreement. And these agreements are merely to meet again and thrash out exactly what it is that we are agreeing to.
The PM could give no implementation date, precisely because all the details are still to be negotiated.
What we do know is that we have agreed to give EU boats continued rights to fish in our waters for the next 12 years. So, with all the details yet to be hammered out, we have already conceded our principal bargaining chip.
Indeed, its worse, from this year forward, there was to have been an annual negotiation of the extent of EU access to our waters: Every year we would have had negotiating leverage to secure desirable concessions. Instead, we’ve forgone 12 years of bargaining power.

All that we do know is that we will be subject to rules made elsewhere, that we will have to pay, but we don’t know how much.

What a rip-off

Recognition of a Palestinian state, will not cerate one. It would be a gesture, but it would be an important one nevertheless

Constituents have emailed me over the last year or so, in pursuit of ‘uniting the right’ through a merger or pact between Reform and the Conservative Party, with the objective of avoiding perpetuating government by the Labour Party. Of course, the Runcorn by-election and the Local Elections on Thursday have created a greater urgency and accelerated this email correspondence over the last 48 hours.
The difficulty is that no such arrangement is on offer. On current performance, Reform is convinced that it can beat Labour without any pact with the Tories.
Equally, for the Tories, nothing ever turns out to be as bad as first reported. It will take time to see if the Conservative Party can recover its reputation for competence and with that, its electoral support. Tories will want to watch as Reform has to survive the much greater level of media scrutiny that will now accompany its electoral success. The life of this Parliament will be a marathon and not a sprint: it is far too soon to make predictions as to how things will progress and what will be he impact of, as yet unknown events.

Nevertheless, when the next general election is much closer, if the polling and the way that political landscape has developed suggests that minority support for a further term of Labour government is likely to prevail, then both Reform and the Conservatives may review the question of an electoral pact as the lesser of two evils.

A number of difficulties will arise for any such endeavour.
There can be no doubt that Nigel Farage has been one of the most influential politicians of my lifetime. He was once an enthusiastic Conservative, a devotee of Sir Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher. Yet he became convinced that the Conservatives would never be persuaded to leave the EU and for that reason would need to be destroyed and replaced. Inevitably, this history makes for a relatively difficult reconciliation.
Next, as Reform has advanced at the expense of Conservative support, it has increasingly turned its attention to the battle to win support from former Labour voters. As it has done so, its rhetoric and policy is becoming more remote from the free market economics that are core beliefs of ‘Thatcherite’ Conservatives, and which were once Farage’s original inspiration.
Third, Reform is determined to implement proportional representation which is anathema to Tories, who believe that it will perpetuate continental style coalition government.
Finally, Farage is someone that many Conservatives detest. He has been an apologist for both Putin and also for some of the most egregious behaviour of Donald Trump.

Detestation, however, is still negotiable and ultimately, expediency will prevail.
A view will be taken on the basis of an electoral calculation of the consequences of not negotiating a pact. Until that time, both Conservatives and Reform, will be each hoping that their fortunes and the turn of events will enable them to avoid having to consider it.

It is just far too soon to be led by an over-excited press, to be speculating about it.