By Michael Ashcraft –
The United Kingdom formally abolished blasphemy laws in 2008, after atheists aired skepticism and derision toward Christianity for decades.
In 2024, the Labour Party (currently in power) is floating the idea of restoring blasphemy laws in the name of protecting Islam.
“Islam is fragile,” Tim Sennet posted on X. The MP “only cares about Islam. He knows what he’s doing.”
Tahir Ali, the MP for Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley, urged Prime Minister Keir Starmer to outlaw desecration of the Koran and the Prophet Mohammed, along with other Holy Books and Prophets of “Abrahamic religions.”
“Acts of such mindless desecration only serve to fuel division and hatred within our society,” Tahir said in the House of Commons. “Will the prime minister commit to introducing measures to prohibit the desecration of all religious texts and the prophets of the Abrahamic religions?”
The Labour Party depends heavily on the Muslim vote to stay in power. Starmer has been accused of going soft on pro-Palestinian protestors and Muslims protestors who have gone so far as to call for the death of Jews. At the same time, he has cracked down on his political opponents, even releasing criminals to make room in the prisons.
“I agree that desecration is awful and should be condemned across the House,” Starmer said in response to Tahir. “We are, as I said before, committed to tackling all forms of hatred and division, including Islamophobia in all its forms.”
November was Islamophobia Awareness month in the United Kingdom.
Many consider Labour’s flirtation with suppressing free speech as worrisome. “A truly black moment for Britain to hear a prime minister effectively endorse the idea that we should reintroduce blasphemy laws,” said UK journalist Matt Ridley.
GBNews said further empowering of “speech police” would turn the UK into a “dystopia.”
TalkTV said, “Mocking Christianity is absolutely fine but not Islam.”
As yet, the idea of blasphemy laws are vague, but the mention of protecting the Koran and the Prophet Mohammad are two flashpoints for evangelizing Muslims. The Koran is chock full of horrifying details (such as killing apostates and infidels), and Mohammad’s life included slave trade and pedophilia.
(According to Islamic tradition, one of Mohammad’s wives, Aisha, was betrothed to him at a young age and the marriage was consummated when she was around nine years old. In some societies at the time, marriage age was determined by physical maturity rather than chronological age.)
The aim of protecting the weakest points in Islam is nervy. Would evangelism of Muslims be completely shut down in the UK as a result? Will preachers go to jail for speaking truth? Will academics be barred from subjecting the Koran to the same historical critique they subjected the Bible?
Former Muslim Hatun Tash employs provocative showmanship in Hyde Park in her attempts to expose Islam. She has drilled holes in the Koran in public to illustrate the “holes in the narrative” that Muslim scholar Yasir Qadhi said riddled the common notion that the Koran has been perfectly preserved since its beginning.
She also jig-sawed a sword shape of all the pages out of Koran in a satiric video showing the “only way to remove the sword (violence) from the Koran.”
Hatun and other polemicists have been powerfully effective in evangelizing Muslims, in part because they use the forceful language of the culture of Muslims.
The ruling party doesn’t appear to be interested in free speech. They continue to press on with the supposed intersectionality between LGBTQ and “oppressed’ people of color, i.e, Muslims.
For many of the woke mindset, Christianity is disparaged, while Islam is their darling.
To learn more about a personal relationship with Jesus, click here.
About this writer: Michael Ashcraft pastors a church in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles.
