Sayeeda Warsi

Tory leadership contest: when did vice signalling become a virtue?

The Tory leadership contest has taken a strange turn. Perhaps it's a purposeful distraction from their (non-)strategies for realising Brexit, but they seem to have taken to vice signalling (or, for believers, sin signalling) in order to reassure voters that…

Why are there anti-Christian extremists on the Commission for Countering Extremism?

February 4, 2019
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"The Commission for Countering Extremism supports society to fight all forms of extremism", declares the Government website for the Commission for Countering Extremism. "It advises the government on new policies…

Rowan Williams was denounced for saying Sharia Law in UK was inevitable, so why isn’t Justin Welby being commended for saying it’s not?

February 26, 2018
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Back in 2008, the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams delivered a cerebral lecture about society and pluralism to a huddle of lawyers gathered in London. It might have remained fairly…

Do we really need a faith minister for “fairies, goblins and imaginary friends”?

September 15, 2016
132 Comments

We live in an age of ever-increasing secularity, in which religious practice must be half-hidden and religious conviction often-denied. You have to excavate quite deep to discover the moral sources…

Anglican clergy foment hate against Brexit Christians

June 29, 2016
460 Comments

"But the privilege of democracy is to vote. To campaign vigorously. To have robust and firm discussion," said the Archbishop of Canterbury to those gathered for the inaugural Lambeth…

Mosque without minaret? Baroness Warsi spectacularly misses the point

December 17, 2015
327 Comments

What's the main problem with Islam? The mosque and minaret, or the Wahhabi-Salafist apprehension of Mohammed? Professor Sayeeda Warsi (of St Mary’s University, Twickenham) explains: “What I would like…

Cameron can no more "destroy the Caliphate" than he can abolish the New Jerusalem

July 21, 2015
190 Comments

David Cameron's long-awaited speech on Islamic extremism (aka Islamism) was sort of worth waiting for. As he expounded his 'One Nation' vision to defeat the "poison" of extremism, he…

What are 'Muslim values', Lady Warsi?

January 25, 2015
165 Comments

The problem is her article's timing, and that when David Cameron stretched out his hand in friendship and promoted and indulged her time and again, there was impatience, irritability…

"If 100,000 Jews leave, France will no longer be France"

January 13, 2015
484 Comments

The words of French Prime Minister Manuel Valls echo down the centuries of anti-Semitic Europe, where Jews have been marginalised, persecuted, reviled, expelled and turned to ash in the…

Douglas Alexander champions a Global Envoy for Religious Freedom

December 22, 2014
105 Comments

"Yet, at this time of great peril, I deeply regret that the British Government seems to be stepping back, rather than stepping up," writes Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander…

Slaughter in the synagogue is just politics as usual

November 19, 2014
201 Comments

There is a perception, if not a widespread understanding, that anything to do with Jews and everything to do with Israel is acutely political. Throughout its recorded history and…

Palestinian statehood: the hypocrisy of Labour's three-line whip

October 13, 2014
142 Comments

We know how the argument goes. If you oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state, you are a bigoted Zionist who perpetuates suffering and injustice through illegal occupation. If…

Eric Pickles: Jihad will be defeated by the "guiding principles of the English Reformation"

September 5, 2014
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Since Sayeeda Warsi left the Government, the Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP has assumed direct responsibility for matters of faith. They were, of course, always under the aegis as Secretary…

The flaw in the Fatwa on the so-called Islamic State

September 2, 2014
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This really is quite magnificent. To those who insist Muslims cannot or will not integrate with or conform to British values, customs and traditions, this fatwa (= religious opinion; not…

As long as Obama spouts the fallacy that the Islamic State "speaks for no religion", we will never kill the root

August 21, 2014
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It would appear that the barbaric Islamist who decapitated US journalist James Foley was a dude named John, probably from East London, who took a brief sojourn in Syria with…

Archbishop of Mosul: "Your liberal and democratic principles are worth nothing here"

August 19, 2014
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The translated words of Emil Nona, Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Mosul, now exiled in Erbil (via Rorate Caeli): "Our sufferings today are the prelude of those you, Europeans and Western…

Bishop of Leeds accuses Cameron of turning his back Iraqi Christians

August 17, 2014
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It hasn't been for the want of trying. Numerous blog posts have been written, emails and DMs exchanged, and meeting with senior ministers held. This blog has been at the…