PM Keir Starmer says it is wrong to suggest there is two-tier justice in the UK – with some groups treated differently because of who they are.
His Attorney General, Lord Hermer, went even further, saying such claims were “disgusting”.
Men sitting on a Sharia council in East London[/caption]
Hardline Muslim activists in London[/caption]
Extremists protest outside Downing Street[/caption]
What I have found out about Sharia law in the UK shows how dangerously wrong they are.
The horrific murder, forced marriage and coercive control of women and girls by family members is still referred to in the UK as “honour crime”.
New research shows that there were 2,755 “honour”-based offences recorded here in the last year.
Of these, 111 concerned FGM, or female genital mutilation, while 201 related to forced marriage.
But my research has shown FGM may well be being carried out behind closed doors in private clinics on London’s Harley Street.
The law against it was introduced 40 years ago yet, so far, there have only ever been TWO prosecutions.
Last month, the Home Office announced it will introduce a legal definition of “honour”-based abuse as part of the Government’s pledge to halve violence against women.
Yet how will they do this when it would appear that Sharia courts — also known as “councils” — are rife in the UK?
Even though they are not part of UK law, these courts operate informally, within deeply religious Muslim enclaves.
Stoned to death
The creeping acceptance of Sharia law in the UK has serious ramifications.
It signals that all women’s rights are under threat, because to support Sharia (as many liberal and left-wing people in the UK appear to do) is to be against equality.
In December 2024, several months after Labour came to power, it was claimed in a major national newspaper investigation that the UK has become the “Western capital” for Sharia courts, which issue religious rulings on marriage and family life.
The probe found that an app used by Muslims in England and Wales to create Islamic wills has a drop-down menu for men to select how many wives they have (up to four).
Approved by a Sharia court — a panel of male Islamic scholars — it reportedly ensures that daughters will receive only half as much inheritance as sons.
What the term “honour crimes” means is that the female victims have been accused of bringing shame to their husband, family and/or wider community.
In Pakistan and a number of other deeply religious Muslim countries, women can be stoned to death for adultery, even if what actually happened was that they were raped by a man outside of the family.
An anti-Sharia law demonstration in Trafalgar Square[/caption]
Keir Starmer says it is wrong to suggest there is two-tier justice in the UK[/caption]
Sharia courts first appeared in Britain in the 1980s and also sanction “pleasure marriages”, which allow a man and woman to “marry” for as little as 30 minutes, so that the man can have sex outside of marriage, including in brothels.
Women and girls living within Muslim communities in the UK are particularly vulnerable to domestic violence.
Forced and early marriage, polygamy and draconian attitudes towards the role of women in the home result in such wives having little or no power — and men doing exactly as they wish.
Widespread use of Sharia courts to settle disputes between family members has resulted in a free-for-all within some conservative Muslim households.
There are estimated to be as many as 85 Sharia courts operating in Britain.
These courts enjoy at least some conditional support from a number of non-Muslim establishment figures, apparently including the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams.
‘Honour-crimes’
Back in 2008, he said: “There’s a place for finding what would be a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law, as we already do with some other aspects of religious law.”
According to victims of domestic abuse who have spoken out, Sharia courts almost always take the side of the male abuser, telling their victims to examine their own behaviour in search of a way to stop “provoking” the violence.
My research into Sharia courts suggested that Muslim clerics rarely (if ever) advise reporting perpetrators to police, preferring to advise men to take anger management classes and receive mentoring from “community elders”, so that their marriages can be saved.
After more than five decades of feminism in the West, it is astonishing that so many on the Left are willing to sacrifice women’s rights — especially those of Muslim-born women — in the name of so-called religious freedom.
In the UK, anyone speaking out against Sharia law can wrongly face claims of racism.
I have been listed on the Islamophobia Watch website ever since publishing my first article about the Pakistani-Muslim grooming gangs in 2007.
‘Pleasure marriages’
I made it clear that the men were committing such crimes because they knew the UK authorities would probably turn a blind eye so as to avoid “racial tensions”.
But I was still labelled a racist.
To accuse feminists of being “anti-Muslim” because we campaign against Sharia and its apologists is to suggest that the Muslim girls and women it affects do not count.
No matter how much new legislation this Government introduces, these terrible crimes will continue unabated until we crack down on Sharia courts and make it clear that the only law that matters is the law of the land.
There can be no justification for a two-tier legal system in the UK.