Back in early July, the town hall sent me the following Councillors’ briefing about an incident not far from my home: “At 4pm on Saturday (4th July) 100 people gathered in Green Street, Upton Park, with banners proclaiming “Jesus was Muslim”. At approx 6.45pm a fight broke out. A man being chased by a group of youths of Asian appearance collided with a 328 bus and suffered a head injury… Green Street was closed for a couple of hours.”

In this week’s New Statesman cover story ‘The Muslim Jesus’ (anyone still doubt that religion is rising rapidly up the agenda in secular Britain?), the senior political editor Mehdi Hasan approvingly quotes Jonathan Bartley of the left-leaning Ekklesia think-tank (here): “There is a fundamental tension at the heart of interfaith dialogue that neither side wants to face up to, and that is that the orthodox Christian view of Jesus is blasphemous to Muslims and the orthodox Muslim view of Jesus is blasphemous to Christians.”

Hold those two thoughts for a moment.

Last Thursday I was panellist at a well-promoted ‘Big Debate’ at Conway Hall in Bloomsbury. It was organised by the Muslim Debate Initiative on the subject ‘Islamification of Britain: Myth or Reality?’ (here). Courageously MDI – represented on the panel by Abdullah al Andalusi – had invited the BNP as well as the quietly impressive Andrew Copson from the British Humanist Association, a pleasant but woolly Anglican clergyman billed as ‘Princess Diana’s spiritual adviser’, the chairman of the English Democrats who gave an inappropriate party political puff, and myself. BBC, CNN and Press TV covered the event inside while the militant Unite Against Fascism protested outside against the inclusion of the BNP in the programme.

400 people listened for nearly 3 hours while the six-man panel (no women of course, this is Islam) debated the hot issue. The BNP contribution was muted; Andrew Copson was articulate and credible; Abdullah al Andalusi struggled to convince; questions from the floor were frequently penetrating. At one point two members of UAF broke in to the hall to rant “No platform for fascists”, but they were rapidly shown the door by police and stewards.

I take my hat off to MDI Muslims for organising the event. It went smoothly and to time. The discussion was robust yet respectful. MDI faced down UAF’s objection to their Open Platform policy for the BNP, arguing that it’s better to debate than come to blows. Of course there was no agreed conclusion about the Islamification of Britain, but the event was democracy in action. Debate and discussion is the answer to our differences.

(Journalist and blogger Umar Farooq was the first out of the blocks with a detailed review of the debate including the publication of his YouTube videos of the event (here). Flatteringly, he marked me the highest of the panellists (rating 8/10), reckoned I had “massive influence on the crowd” and thought that the audience were impressed at the way I put my points across. Many thanks Umar!)

So now onto another Muslim ‘Big Debate’, called Jesus 4 Sharia – yes, really (here)! It’s to be held on Friday this week and is being promoted by Islam4UK, the latest front name for the fundamentalist al-Muhajiroun group led by Islamic lawyer and self-publicist Anjem Choudary.

A couple of months ago posters sprouted across Newham – including on my street – and elsewhere, advertising a ‘March 4 Sharia’ from Westminster to Trafalgar Square. Organised by Choudary’s group, it was cancelled at the last minute citing ‘security concerns’ – to the delight both of secular Muslims and of non-Muslims. “Lack of support more like,” muttered pundits and bloggers. Maybe.

Undaunted the irrepressible Choudary has now issued his challenge to Christian leaders to publicly debate Jesus with him a week before Christmas. Like the angry Green Street demonstrators and despite the fact that Islam first appeared 600 years after Christ, Choudary argues that the Founder of Christianity was in fact a Muslim – a view universally affirmed by mainstream Islam. “If Jesus were alive today he would… wholeheartedly embrace the Sharia law of… Muhammad,” Choudary says provocatively.

“Don’t touch this debate,” emailed a friend. But in the NS article Bartley points out that the different Christian and Muslim understandings of Jesus are ‘deal-breakers’ between the faiths. And it is better the differences should be debated rather than fought over, as happened on Green Street in July.

So I’ve contacted Choudary and, together with Christian friend and Islam expert Jay Smith, we’ve taken up the challenge.

Let’s see if Choudary accepts.

(Update: In the event Choudary “postponed” the debate, admitting that he was having difficulties in obtaining a venue. He also said that Jay Smith and I were not of appropriate calibre for such a topic and audience, and that he would prefer to debate with a particular Anglican bishop that he named.

I reckon that Choudary’s real reason is that he is fearful of debating with Jay who has already soundly beaten Choudary’s al-Muhajiroun boss Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad in debate – before the latter inadvertently exiled himself in Lebanon.

Jay can publicly prove the Christian gospel from the Quran. Anjem Choudary knows he could not stand up under the challenge of such expertise, and that’s the real reason why he’s “postponed” the event.)

Ten days ago I got a call. It was journalist Hugh Muir, formerly of the Newham Recorder but now lively diarist at the Guardian. He has a new column in the paper’s G2 section ‘Hideously diverse Britain’ , presumably borrowed from Greg Dyke’s ‘hideously white BBC’ jibe (here) and wanted to interview me about the projected West Ham mega-mosque that I’ve been opposing for the past three years (here).

We met at the Christian Peoples Alliance office at Canning Town and talked about the mosque and our campaign. He questioned me at length about the acceptability of a Christian challenging the construction of a Muslim place of worship. Eventually he asked how I felt about the pro-mosque websites and videos that virulently attack me for my opposition and attempt to taint me with a BNP brush, for instance here and here.

I told him how I’d discovered that the person responsible for the websites, Tahire Faruq, lives just half a mile from my home, and how I called on him unannounced earlier this year to see if he’d have a cuppa and chat. Suddenly Muir lit up; he’d smelt a story. Astonished that I’d visit a hostile opponent who’d obviously crawled all over my past life (why? – after all, Christ teaches his followers to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’), Muir became animated. I realised he’d suddenly found the narrative for his ‘Hideously diverse’ column the following week.

It was published in the Guardian last Friday – ‘Friendship across the religious divide’. You can read it in full here.

I especially like Muir’s optimistic ending: ‘If that’s the future, it’s not so bad’.

The liberal democratic liberties that hesitantly grew and then finally flourished across the UK and Europe over the past couple of centuries are under assault as never before. The continent is run by an unelected, interfering and financially incompetent (or corrupt) Commission that, as Ireland has found out, is utterly cynical about the will of the electorate expressed through the ballot box; the clout of the UK’s ancient Mother of Parliaments – sunk in the quagmire of the expenses scandal – has arguably never been lower; and the yawning gap of mutual incomprehension between the governing classes and ordinary people is feeding the growth of hard-line extremism on all sides, as the May election of two BNP MEPs and the recent UAF-encouraged Muslim violence at Harrow mosque (here) demonstrate. 

One by one – and despite the European Convention on Human Rights and associated national legislation – the lights of our liberties and freedoms are being extinguished in the name of our risk-avoiding, hurt-preventing, initiative-curtailing, target-worshipping, bureaucratic-meddling, money-mad, politically-correct, aggressively-atheist nanny state, which itself is only one stop away from a police state.

And the downhill slide towards this police state took a defining step forward two weeks ago when a Christian couple, Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang, were arrested following a heated argument about religion in front of guests in the restaurant of their nine-bedroom private hotel in Aintree, Liverpool. No violence took place, no mayhem ensued; but one Muslim participant reckoned her religious sensibilities had been insulted and went to the police. Plod knocked on the hotel door – and now the Vogelenzangs have been remanded on bail and await trial under the Public Order Act 1986, a measure designed to stop violence and disorder on the streets.

The details will come out during the court case in December, but it’s already clear that the robust but peaceful expression of religious beliefs and opinions in a semi-private place in England in 2009 is now subject to police intervention and arrest. Henry Porter in the Guardian called the decision to prosecute ‘daft’ (here). Others reckon the police action is ‘heavy-handed’. Actually it is much worse than that; it is deeply deeply ominous. The mind-set and management ethos of the police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has now become so Orwellian and Stasi-like that in my view we have crossed the anti-democratic Rubicon. The chilling effect of this prosecution – whether it succeeds or not – on free speech is momentous and we are now but a few steps from Gestapo knocks on the door in the dead of night for anyone who expresses peaceful but apparently contentious, odious, offensive or politically incorrect views especially, as in this case, about Islam.

Of course the normal courtesies of hospitality should have restrained the Vogelenzangs from arguing with one of their guests, and I am not surprised that the local hospital is no longer sending outpatients to stay at the hotel. I wouldn’t either. But that does not justify police arrest or the CPS decision to prosecute.

To paraphrase George Orwell, ‘Liberty, if it means anything, means the right to offend’. By being dragged into court the Volgelenzangs have already been penalised for exercising that right and by extension, as fellow citizens, so have we. And they may yet receive a substantial fine and a criminal record.

What is to be done? First, the Vogelenzangs’ fight is our fight so I’m sending £100 to their legal defence fund run by the Christian Institute (here).

Second, we must stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them. I therefore intend to repeat their opinions – only more so – on this blogsite with a view to sharing a police cell and court appearance with them.

The exact nature of their offending views is open to dispute as the unnamed Muslim lady claims Ben Vogelenzang called the founder of Islam, Muhammad, a ‘warlord’ – but he denies this. However it seems agreed that Sharon described the hijab (Islamic headscarf) as a form of ‘bondage’ (here).

Now I certainly admire Muhammad as one of the great figures of history, up there with Napoleon, Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great and King David (of Goliath fame, who established Jerusalem as Israel’s capital around 1,000 BC). And the modesty of much Islamic dress is to be applauded.

But it is also valid to see Muhammad – like other historical greats – as a very flawed figure. And the niqab (Islamic face-veil) is as controversial in the UK as in France (here).

So I hope my Muslim friends and acquaintances (that especially includes you Abdul, Asif, Mohammed, Humera, Tahire, Manish, Irfan and Yaqoob) will forgive me now as I write about both Muhammad’s flaws and Islamic dress in a way they may find offensive. But I need to do so (a) primarily in order to assert my right to freedom of speech, and (b) secondarily to get myself nicked so that I can stand alongside the Vogelenzangs.

“Muhammad was a warlord, a paedophile and a vindictive murderer, and the niqab is a hostile anti-social sign of female subjection which should be banned from public places.”

There, I’ve done it. Now if someone would kindly take a copy of this post to the police, please also tell them they can obtain my address via Newham town hall. I’ll await with anticipation the nocturnal knock on my door.

Ben and Sharon, wait for me. I’m on my way!

Tehran-based Press TV, the Iranian government’s English-language answer to the Arab-owned Al-Jazeera English, has been taking some heavy hits since the repression of opposition during and after the rigged Iranian presidential elections in June. The station has been referred to Ofcom for breaching ‘impartiality and accuracy’ requirements of public broadcasting (here), and Press TV’s English journalists like Andrew Gilligan, Cherie Blair’s half-sister Lauren Booth and Yvonne Ridley have all been heavily criticised for de facto working for the holocaust-denying and increasingly apocalyptic Tehran government (here) . Some have even questioned whether the station should be allowed to operate in the UK (here).

I was posed a conundrum on Monday when, out of the blue, I received an email inviting me to participate as a panellist in Press TV’s flagship current affairs show Forum on Wednesday. This is a Question Time-style programme with four panellists and chaired by none other than the controversial Andrew Gilligan. The four were to be Ahmed Versi, the respected editor of Muslim News; Massoud Shadjareh, the vocal and perennially indignant chair of the Islamic Human Rights Commission; Said Shehata, Egyptian Coptic lecturer in Middle East politics at London Metropolitan University; and me. The topic for discussion: ‘Is Islamophobia a threat to British society?’ Apparently Press TV ‘found (my) views compelling’ when they interviewed me about the proposed West Ham mega-mosque last year, and reckoned I would be ‘a very valuable asset to the panel’.

Putting aside the naughty thought that if I was so compelling why had they contacted me just 48 hours before the show (who had cancelled on them?), I realised that I had to decide (a) whether an appearance on Press TV is in any way supporting the Iranian regime; and (b) whether to accept the offered fee.

Having been frequently and baselessly accused of Islamophobia over our mega-mosque campaign, I knew I had a lot to say on the topic. And – more importantly – we live in a liberal democracy, and even a government led by a Mahdist maniac should be allowed to promote its views in the UK. So the station is legitimate. But should I take Ahmadinejad’s shilling?

After some heart-searching I came to a blindingly obvious conclusion. I’d ask for the fee to be sent to a deserving charity. I informed Press TV that the payment should be forwarded to the campaigning ‘voice for the voiceless’ aid organisation Christian Solidarity Worldwide (here) led by the former disgraced Cabinet minister but now rehabilitated Christian writer and speaker Jonathan Aitken.

Problem solved, I attended the show in west London and came up against the full force of Shadjareh’s incendiary indignation. He immediately locked onto the BNP and didn’t want to come off the topic. It was only slowly that I realised he actually needs the BNP; the more he can enhance the perceived role and importance of this dreadful far-right group, the more important his own role will be – at least in his own eyes. No growth of the BNP, no stick with which to beat the UK media, authorities, and society in general. During the show Shadjareh and I went head-to-head more than once.

The following morning I attended a Henry Jackson Society conference in Westminster on Iran: ‘The Islamic Republic of Iran: New Course or Old Paradigms?’ (here) Among other things speakers explained that the messianic proclamations and lunatic policies of Ahmadinejad are derived from his form of Shi’ite Mahdism. The Mahdi is the Twelfth and last Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, who was born in 868 AD, ‘hidden by Allah’ at age 5 and now apparently waiting to return. Shi’ites consider that on his return the Mahdi will fight for the cause of Islam and restore justice, fairness and faith.

If I understand it right, Ahmadinejad’s version of Mahdism is particularly apocalyptic. It seems he believes Muslims can actively speed up the Mahdi’s return by deliberately creating the necessary chaos that will impel him to come back to sort out the situation, to rid the earth of error and injustice, and to rule the globe for Islam.

It looks like Iran, the Middle East and the world are in for a rough ride thanks to Ahmadinejad’s dangerous theology and imminent nuclear capability. The dreadful BNP seem like Andrex puppies in comparison.

Newham Labour Party has an interesting turn in personal insults, and their primitive invective is an outer reflection of the inner nature of the party. ‘Things that come out of the mouth come from the heart… evil thoughts… false testimony… slander. These are what make a person unclean.’ (Jesus Christ)

I previously have quoted Labour activist John Gray’s views about CPA members (here), among the most revealing of which are his opinion that my colleague Simeon Ademolake is a ‘thoughtless thug’ and a ‘bigot’, and that I am a ‘squalid, grubby, tin-pot politician’ and a ‘super-egotist’. I’m not sure a senior local activist dolling out such personal abuse helps the high calling of politics in Newham, but it certainly tells us a lot about Gray.

Now we have some more, the crown of which is that ‘CPA are a bunch of scumbags’ – according to Clive Furness, Labour councillor and Newham mayoral adviser, who attributes this scintillating soubriquet to his colleagues. As you see, Newham’s power-driven ruling party doesn’t do sophistication, nuance or self-restraint – or even maturity; the cave-man’s club and the brutalist’s bludgeon are their weapons of choice.

This Labour name-calling came about as follows: 

Colleagues and I recently commissioned an independent ComRes poll of opinion in the borough about the mega-mosque proposed for West Ham close to the site of the 2012 London Olympics. Amongst other things ComRes came to the promising conclusion (here) that the majority of Newham Muslims would prefer a mixed-use development on the site rather than a mega-mosque. However this is the first such survey and it is early days to come to a settled conclusion.

Furness has been an avid proponent of the mosque project. He even used his executive authority at the town hall to invite voluntary sector leaders in the borough to the mega- mosque’s botched Open Day last year. Such promotion would normally be the responsibility of the project’s smooth PR agents, Indigo Public Affairs, but Furness stepped in and instructed a council officer to dispatch Open Day invitations to over 270 community workers across the borough. I publish the facts; you join the dots.

Last week Furness had a letter published in the Newham Recorder that criticised our survey and contained factual errors about our campaign (here). I’ve been wanting to raise public discussion about the mega-mosque and to this end I even made it one of the main planks in my London Mayoral campaign last year (here) – but Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson both managed to cleverly skirt round the issue at hustings and elsewhere. So last Friday I emailed Furness (copy to the Recorder) challenging him to a public debate about the mega-mosque, never thinking he’d agree. Why should he? Labour doesn’t do democracy or public debate within its Newham fiefdom as it can see no party advantage, and Furness’ favoured mosque project has survived so far by keeping its head down and avoiding public scrutiny wherever possible.  

(Interestingly Indigo has been increasingly mocked by journalists for being the only hired PR agency that refuses to promote their client to the media. A Finnish TV crew became so incensed at Indigo’s Trappist silence one day, that after covering the mosque story they went off to film the company’s office building in Berkeley Square for a news piece about a dumb London PR agency – apparently to be accompanied in part by a silent soundtrack.)

At first it appeared I might be wrong. Furness seemed to rise to the bait and by return he accepted the challenge. We agreed on an independent chair for the debate and he proposed some rules for the event to be held sometime in September. But then came the sucker-punch that laughably – and presumably deliberately – torpedoes the whole event. He emailed his Labour colleagues’ preferred motion, ‘The CPA are a bunch of scumbags pandering to racism’, before making his own ‘more moderate’ suggestion.

Receiving such mindless abuse from the ruling party goes with the territory in Newham, and CPA has been in Labour’s sights for years. Furness’ colleague James Butler got in early by opining in the national press that CPA ‘are every bit as evil as the BNP’ (Sunday Express, 1 October 2006).

I am of course interested to know which of my warm-hearted colleagues in our multiracial Christian and democratic party is a BNP racist scumbag. Is it…

Councillor Denise Stafford or Councillor Simeon Ademolake?

Or perhaps, maybe… it’s me!

Furness is now on holiday but he’ll be wriggling following his rash acceptance of the challenge. The Labour Party will be leaning on him to not engage in public debate as democracy is against party policy in Newham. He’ll be looking for a way out, and proposing silly motions and setting impossible conditions should provide him with a smokescreen for escape.

Watch this space. Let’s hope I’m wrong.

We have to admit it. For the time being the social liberals have won the culture and media wars and, aided and orchestrated by the trendy politically-correct metro-nanny BBC (no longer our spinster Auntie), they completely dominate public discussion.This doesn’t make them right, and I’d certainly lay at their door responsibility for the destruction of the family – the glue of society – which has resulted in so much dysfunction amongst our emotionally-deprived and troubled youngsters. However there are achievements of the left-liberal PC brigade which I reckon are wholly praiseworthy. See for instance how our public attitudes towards disability have changed for the better over the past two decades.

But now this PC dominance has become suffocating and unhealthy. Like Harriet Harman, political-correctness lectures, hectors and handbags us into line. It promotes blandness and conformity, suffers from post-imperial guilt and self-loathing, talks in empty elastic management-speak, dismisses independence and character, and stifles real debate. And, appallingly, it plays directly into the hands of the BNP which, rising from the grass roots, is a growing protest against such top-down elitist control of debate and policy.

But what’s this? Into the politically-correct public arena steps the gentle, saintly and scholarly figure of the Rt Revd Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester and member of the House of Lords.

Instead of resting in the comfy armchairs and imbibing at the cocktail parties of the great and good like the Oxbridge don he yearns to be, this Pakistani refugee from persecuting Islam strides into both church synod and peers chamber uttering orthodox 2,000-year-old Christian truth.

Its explosive stuff of course, the sort of stuff that got Jesus Christ murdered by the religious and political establishment of his day. Inevitably the current Church of England establishment is embarrassed. “Christian truth?” murmur liberal bishops. “Please don’t talk about that.”

Over recent days gays have dominated the airwaves of the gay-obsessed BBC, run at senior levels by a lesbian mafia according to insiders. The programming was prompted by the 40th anniversary on 28th June of the Stonewall riots in New York and by last weekend’s huge Gay Pride march in central London. Much of the discussion has been inconsequential, reflecting perhaps that the homosexual agenda is now so mainstream it has nothing new to offer. See for instance the vacuous political squabble between the gays of the two front benches (here).

But Bishop Michael spoilt the party. He threw a rock into the pool. He told the Sunday Telegraph that gays ought to repent (here) – a universally applicable idea he borrowed from the Founder of Christianity and Saviour of the World (Matt 4:17, etc).

Of course the balloon went up with the usual suspects queuing to heap opprobrium onto the Bishop’s balding head. The often admirable Peter Tatchell called on Dr Nazir-Ali to repent of his sins (here). And even some unknown Tory frontbencher called Nick Herbert who claims to be gay (“me too, me too”) had a go, ludicrously lumping together gentle bishops like Dr Nazir-Ali (and perhaps the equally gentle and scholarly Bishop of Durham, Dr Tom Wright) with homophobic bullies at home and gay persecution abroad (here). Really?

It’s probably inevitable that Bp Michael should have decided to resign (here) from the Bishops’ Bench – the C of E cannot contain a senior man of character and courage like him. It seems backbones of jelly are required for leaders of our national church, and this mild-mannered courteous man refuses to fit that bill.

He’s a true scholar and gentle-man as well as a true Christian leader. I honour him.

Last night I was shocked.

For some time I’ve been tracking the rise of religion in our political debate and – perhaps unfairly – laughed at the antics of religiously illiterate politicians and secular commentators as they try to get to grips with – especially – Christian and Islamic concepts.

Last night I encountered the dark side of the phenomenon.

As The Christian Choice Mayoral candidate I attended election hustings at Kensington Temple (KT) in Notting Hill Gate. It’s an amazing multi-ethnic church stuffed full of young people that holds five services on Sundays and lots of mid-week services including youth worship on Saturday night, and that has spawned daughter churches all over London.

KT is the only organisation in the whole of London so far that has invited all 10 mayoral candidates to hustings. KT does not buy into the cosy BBC-style exclusivity of inviting only the ‘big three’ or four. Our democracy grew out of our fertile Judeo-Christian heritage and it takes a church to maintain open level-playing-field democracy in London.

But that meant the BNP came too.

The shock was how far and how much the BNP clothe their narrow nationalist and racist dogma in ‘Christian’ garments. They claim to be Christian despite the views of their founder John Tyndall (“What passes for Christianity in this country today can only be described as superstitious sociology: a bland doctrine of welfare-mongering with guilt, humility and self-abasement…”) and current legal officer Lee Barnes (“The teachings of the Biblical Jesus and the Biblical Christ are a mixture of truth and deliberate falsehoods…”).

But as I listened to the BNP spokesman last night I realised that theirs is a counterfeit Christianity, a pseudo-Christianity or at best a sub-Christian ideology that tells nothing about a living relationship with the living Christ. There is no grace, no warmth, no compassion – their ‘Christianity’ is all harsh ethics, loveless discipline and dubious morals, and no spirituality.

There is a wide gap between their ‘Christianity’ and my Jesus Christ. When I spoke I said that they themselves needed to come to Christ; if they did so they would leave the BNP.

The other shock was the positive response the BNP received from some Christians of ethnic minority background. Asians and Africans applauded when the BNP spokesman started speaking about the Bible, the Ten Commandments and Christianity in schools. I was embarrassed – not about promoting faith in schools but that Christians can be naively taken in by BNP ‘Christian’ rhetoric. The journalist from the Evening Standard was puzzled too.

It is widely predicted that the BNP will get at least one seat on the London Assembly on 1 May. I’m praying that we, The Christian Choice, do too – now if for no other reason than that true Christianity should be represented rather than just the BNP counterfeit.