Against Malala Yousafzai.

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American Liberty, BBC, Christianity and Islam, Civilisation, Counter-Jihad, Counterjihad, criticism yousafzai, Cultural Marxism, Defend the modern world, Demographics of Europe, Islamification of Britain, Islamisation of London, Islamophobia, Malala Yousefzai, Muslims, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Rihanna Muslim, Sockpuppet, yousafzai fraud

• First published on this blog in October, 2013

On today’s BBC News ‘magazine’ webpage, there’s a lengthy tribute to the heroism of Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai. Under the title ‘Malala: The girl who was shot for going to school’, the piece goes on to say things like the following:

“She is the teenager who marked her 16th birthday with a live address from UN headquarters, is known around the world by her first name alone, and has been lauded by a former British prime minister as ‘an icon of courage and hope’…She is an extraordinary young woman, wise beyond her years, sensible, sensitive and focused….The voice of the girl whom the Taliban tried to silence a year ago has been amplified beyond what anyone could have thought possible.”

Great tributes indeed, not wholly unlike those paid to Indian spiritual gurus and Western cult leaders. More generally, the piece (by Mishal Hussein) is watery-eyed drivel, and its subject remains a truly unremarkable, very wealthy sockpuppet.

Malala Yousafzai’s only qualification for the praises demanded from us lies in her being shot by the Taliban. Their reasoning for doing this – I concede – was certainly vile. She was one of numerous young girls in the Swat Valley to defend their right to attend school. To this (naturally), the Taliban are resolutely opposed and so – in a manner befitting their cowardice – they chose to silence Ms Yousafzai by bullet, shooting her on a crowded bus.

The Hussein piece ruminates that the Taliban ‘must regret doing this now’. To be honest, they can’t regret it more than me.

I am frankly sick of seeing her pinched little face grinning inside every newspaper I open. Her vacuous and unhelpful words (her latest suggestion is for us to negotiate with the Taliban) are also something we could do without. And why on earth is she living in Birmingham?

The guru known simply as ‘Malala’ is supposed to be a fearless warrior for Pakistani women’s liberties. I can understand that she left Pakistan initially to receive surgery, but despite many local troubles, the women of the English West Midlands are still allowed to go to school. Is her work really required there.

There are literally millions of brave women across the Islamic world who face down similar odds to Her Excellency, but who do not – like her – end-up in five-star New York hotel rooms. Some of them are even hunted in the West for becoming apostates from Islam. One thinks of the names’ Ayaan Hirsi Ali or Wafa Sultan.

But we won’t have either of these speaking at the UN. There’s a reason for that.

Ms Yousafzai has another value, alongside her chocolate-box ‘heroism’ story, for our political elites. She is the ‘Moderate Muslim’ par excellence. A visionary reformer of a culture unable to be reformed. She will doubtlessly also be held up as a ‘unifying’ figure, around which we can gather to bang tambourines and forget our differences, despite those ‘differences’ being the reason Yousefzai’s family scurried on a plane to Britain in the first place (there are many other hospitals she could have attended).

According to the Guardian, Malala has recently sold the rights to her life story for 2 million pounds. This heart-warming entrepreneurialism will provide great comfort to those women the newly minted hero has left behind in Pakistan.

Yousafzai is only 16. The BBC piece wonders excitedly where she can go from here. My suggestion and my hope is Heathrow Airport.

D, LDN.

Characteristics of a Real Refugee

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The vast majority of Muslims seeking ‘asylum’ in Europe, whether from Syria, Afghanistan, Iran or Iraq, are not real refugees. If they were, as has been said countless times before, they would have settled in the first peaceful country they arrived at after fleeing their own.

It is now clear to all but the most doctrinaire Leftist that these people are actually migrants, most of them seeking solely material benefit and financial reward. They are economic refugees, then, not political ones (as the media would have us believe). Not that we should allow political refugees in either, of course, since the first-safe-country principle is also valid in that case.

The only possible exception to this principle – and thus the only conceivable justification for allowing, say, a Syrian or Afghan asylum seeker to settle in Europe – is if the person in question were proven to qualify as a cultural refugee; that is, someone who is fleeing not merely the violent excess of Islam, but Islam itself. While this remains vanishingly rare, it will cost us nothing to briefly define what such a case would be like.

Imagine if in the future a man in his twenties washes up on the southerly coast of Spain. After being taken into custody he is revealed to be a Moroccan citizen who has swam the distance from North Africa to Europe alone and without any possessions. To the surprise of his interrogators the man speaks very good English and announces – convincingly – that he has had enough of living in the age of religious barbarism and wishes to join the Dar al-Harb permanently. He emphatically identifies himself as an atheist, or a Christian (or whatever other non-Islamic identity you care to imagine), and he can eloquently back up his self-identification with detailed arguments and sincere passion.

What to do with him? The response would almost certainly depend on and reflect the deepest ideological poise of those who are asked the question. A nativist, or ethno-nationalist, for example, would politely decline the stranger or perhaps unceremoniously throw him back into the Mediterranean. A Leftist meanwhile would also rather the stranger return to his land of origin, since there is enough ‘Islamophobia’ in Europe already.

Me? I’d demand a probationary period of police vigilance on the fellow, and after that a path to citizenship. In my 3 years as a blogger, I’ve found that ex-Muslims are a very potent resource of resistance to Islam, far more indeed than the average Native. And surely this hypothetical case is exactly what an asylum law is designed for. Just as in the time of Communism we generously admitted those Russians and Eastern-Europeans who wished for freedom, but did not admit Communist sympathisers or state bureaucrats (for reasons of security). So in the age of political Islam must we admit those opposed to barbarism and keep out those dedicated to it.

Whenever a native of the Muslim world shows up at the Free World’s borders, one question should be asked before all others: Why are you leaving? If the answer is not in English, the answer should be treated with suspicion. If the answer is in English but is nevertheless punctuated with inshallahs, al-hamdu lilahs and salaams, the response should be a swift refusal. But if in reasonable English the native says something like the following: “I am looking for freedom. I want to live in the modern world and leave behind the darkness of Islam and its primitive, undeveloped society”, a more generous and warm response is surely merited.

One cannot reasonably ask that the native returns to the first safe country he or she came across, because the first safe country might no longer be safe for an infidel. A more reasonable action would be to inter the individual while background checks are carried out, and then if the individual is clean of connections with Jihad relocate that person to an appropriate part of the Dar al-Harb. It might not be somewhere as illustrious as London or Berlin, but there are many options available.

Over time, a policy like this would lead to the only logical resolution we can hope for in our clash with the Islamic world; geo-cultural segregation. The Free and the Unfree kept apart, and never to merge again.

D, LDN

Malala And Your Children

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BBC, Britain First, Counter-Jihad, Counterjihad, Cultural Marxism, Defend the modern world, Demographics of Europe, EDL, English Defence League, Islam and the West, Islamisation of London, Multiculturalism, Muslims, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census

My darling niece came to visit at the weekend. When she arrived, she was already dancing with happiness because my sister had taken her to a bookshop from where she had purchased a small pile of hardbacks. Thrilled for her joys, I shuffled through them adoringly – most of them were about princesses and princes – until I reached the last volume, a larger book entitled ‘Malala: Warrior with Words’

My heart having sunk like stone, I began to flip lazily through the pages.

“I don’t like this one.” I said, eventually, putting it face-down on the table.

“Why?” she asked. I couldn’t answer her, but let me be more explicit with you. I think it is scandalous for a child to read a book dedicated to a Hamas financier and Islamic entry-wedge. Parents be aware.

D, LDN.

State of the Resistance

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What is the state of the Counterjihad movement? How does it fare? Is it weakening or hardening, spreading or diminishing? These are important questions and I shall here speculate on the answers.

On the face of it, ‘Islamophobia’ would seem to be a booming product. The media (tabloid and broadsheet, print and online) drips with stories bemoaning the violent application of Quranic values. Islamic State is the leading story of our day, as well as the leading concern of Western government. The Rotherham scandal is still evolving and similar cases being dug up elsewhere. Few ordinary people can now be under any illusions about the nature of radical Islamic belief.

But does that mean anything as far as the future is concerned? One can’t fail to notice that Muslims are still entering Europe and settling here by the thousand, and that Muslim organisations are gaining (in the cause of anti-terrorism) deeper and deeper entry into the halls of power. Besides stirring up ill-feeling, what have we actually achieved? Precious little would seem to be the answer.

I’m also beginning to detect a softening in some Counter-Jihad quarters, mild enough for the moment, but real enough to worry about. Formerly radical websites (I won’t name names) are becoming weakly pragmatic, now talking more of ‘integration’ and ‘moderation’ than ‘segregation’ and ‘victory’. One major website, known till now to be a bastion of civilizational confidence, recently launched a project to aid ‘Moderate’ Muslims in redefining their faith to make it ‘compatible’ with European life. This is nothing more than Tariq Ramadan’s ‘Euro-Islam’ idea, repackaged and stamped with new legitimacy. Why is this happening?

Perhaps the market is shrinking, or becoming less angry, deradicalised. Perhaps fewer and fewer people want to read radical anti-Islamic ideas, or feel secure enough to endorse them. Perhaps Islamophobia has ‘punched itself out’. That sounds reasonable to me.

As you may know from personal experience, it is common for people to roll their eyes upon hearing a criticism of Islam these days. While it was once taboo, anti-Islam ideas are now spray-painted on every digital wall, and over time this will bore the imagination whether one agrees with them or not. Anti-Semitism – with its core propositions of Jewish conspiracy and secret control – has likewise been crippled by over-exposure. Everyone is familiar with the claims of Jew-haters; so familiar, that they can never take the claims seriously. Has the same thing occurred with the (real) threat of Islam?

Though despised by history and respected by no-one, Joseph Goebbels is generally considered to have been correct when he wrote that a lie repeated ad infinitum will eventually be accepted as true. I would say, contrariwise, that (in the age of global media) a truth repeated ad infinitum will eventually be regarded as a lie. We all know how disbelief in Global Warming became the default human position. The scientific consensus didn’t change. People just got sick of hearing about it.

Complacency on the Islamic issue will ultimately prove lethal to our civilisation. But it seems human nature, with its inherent weaknesses, overpowers reason to such a degree that we may not be able to do anything about it.

D, LDN.

Could Islamic State Kill Islam?

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For the first time in a blue moon, Anglo-American liberals are telling the truth. Islamic State (or ISIS) are increasingly unpopular with ordinary Muslims. Although few can doubt that the actions of the terror regime are explicitly rooted in Quranic text, the exotic barbarism and random flashes of violence employed by its fighters are rarely endorsed by anyone outside of its own ranks. A swelling number of Muslim regimes (themselves backward and detestable in separate ways) are calling for the annihilation of the Caliphate, with some even looking to the infidel West for help in doing so.

The bigger picture here is fascinating. I’m starting to wonder if the very public cruelties of ISIS are causing a quiet crisis of identity for hundreds of millions of mildly devout believers. Magnifying the most extreme implication of this, I’m starting to wonder if ISIS may prove to be Islam’s fatal wound.

Islamic State is the Quran in action. That point is very important to understand. When you read the Quran, you are reading the basis for the blood-soaked terror currently engulfing Syria and Iraq. If you believe the text is endorsed by heaven, you are silently condoning the same slaughter. Now, I don’t believe that the majority of Muslims are stupid or lacking in humanity. Most of them are ordinary people, often very good-natured people, who have simply been brought up in a climate of ritualised stupidity. Given the deep roots of their cultural heritage, it was always going to take something frightful and extreme to make them question it. Has that ‘something’ now entered the stage of history?

Recall that Communism, as a philosophy and as an aspiration, declined greatly in the latter half of the Twentieth century. Most scholars agree that this process had something to do with the discovery (by historians and statisticians) of the Biblical-scale famines and state genocides of the first half of that century – events that were previously only rumors (deniable rumors). When faced with the realities of the Gulag even the most hard-hearted card-carrier began to wonder if his system of thought stood on faulty ground.

As ISIS continues to expose the consequences of applied Islam, even Saudi Arabia (the ideological source of many ISIS doctrines) finds itself swerving into panicked hypocrisy. Last month it was announced by Saudi officials that the Kingdom will be building a multi-million dollar wall spanning the entirety of its northern border to lessen the threat of an ISIS invasion.

The state of Jordan, after one of its pilots was murdered in the most bestial manner, has sworn to mobilise its military to crush the Islamic State. Egypt, having witnessed the spread of ISIS to neighbouring Libya, has brutally crushed Islamist forces within its own territory. In Tunisia, after Islamic State blew up a tourist destination in the capital city, the local population exploded in horrified shame and patriotic anger. Even Iran is warming to the West (and vice versa) as both powers seek to contain the same barbarism.

As someone who monitors these things, I have personally seen the membership of atheist groups rooted in Muslim countries swell in recent months. The citizenry of countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, Bangladesh, Qatar, Bahrain and Algeria are increasingly aware of how fragile Islam makes their prized social peace and growing economic fortunes.

Has Islamic State – organised to promote and expand the domain of Islam – sent the religion into its death-spiral?

Food for thought.

D, LDN.

Maajid Nawaz’s Striptease Should Surprise Nobody.

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BBC, Britain First, Christianity and Islam, Civilisation, Counter-Jihad, Cultural Marxism, Defend the modern world, ED, EDL, Facebook, Liberal, Maajid, Maajid Nawaz, Maajid Nawaz striptease, Multiculturalism, Nawaz, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census

For many years now, the Pakistani Muslim commentator Maajid Nawaz has been advanced in the media as a model of Islamic reform. Once a crazed Islamist and member of the terroristic faction Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Nawaz suddenly lurched into ‘moderation’ in 2007, having become ‘disillusioned’ with both the means and ends of the Islamist project. His confessional ‘Radical: My Journey Out of Islamic Extremism’ was roundly commended by the Liberal media, and Nawaz is now a paid-up candidate for the Liberal Democrat Party.

Given this reputation, one can imagine the surprise in Liberal circles when yesterdays news broke and was promptly shared around the internet. In case you haven’t heard, a video has been released showing Nawaz – now a self-described ‘Feminist’- enjoying a striptease, during which he violates conventions by groping the woman performing the tease, eventually following her out of the booth to continue the harassment.

Getting a strip-tease is nothing illegal, but it’s fair to say that real ‘feminists’ are not altogether keen on the practice. We are thus prompted to wonder whether this was merely an aberration or in fact a revealing reversion to religious type. My guess is the latter.

Despite his warm words and political gestures in favour of civilisation, Nawaz remains a believing Sunni Muslim. Since his religion anti-sexual, he shuns access to the tact and subtlety that come as the reward of a modern imagination. He is sexually unpredictable for this reason. You cannot shake off the neurosis of faith by changing political direction.

Toxic beliefs, whether or not they are watered down, always find a way of exposing themselves. Moderate Muslims are useless to the counter-jihad cause, for latent within them are all the evils they claim to have overcome. 

To call yourself a Muslim, moderate, liberal or orthodox, you must believe certain things. Prime among them is faith in the divine authorship of the Qur’an and its infallibility. This means you stand by passages describing women as secondary to men. There is no way around that. The passages are very clear and cannot be explained away as poetry or metaphor. To be a Muslim, you also have to believe that the conduct of the Prophet is noble, moral and worth emulating. This includes numerous practices deemed to be immoral and unlawful in modern Western society.

The source of Muslim dysfunction is therefore innate in the system of belief itself, in its articles of faith and the conduct of its holy figures.

While Ex-Muslims have the potential to be our best friends,’moderate’ Muslims like Nawaz fail to recognise the source of the problem and must be rejected for that reason.

D, LDN.

Between Paradise and Hell: The Precarious Happiness of the Christian Lebanese.

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America, America 911, American Liberty, Armenia, Christianity, Christianity and Islam, Christians, Civilisation, Counter-Jihad, Defend the modern world, Demographics of Europe, Lebanon, Maronite, Multiculturalism, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Shia, UK, USA

This past week, various friends of mine have sent me the link to a viral video from MEMRI TV. It features a sultry Lebanese TV anchor cutting the microphone of a London-based ‘Imam’ after he arrogantly seeks to insert his sexual-religious authority into the conversation.

I’m not as impressed by this as others seem to be. That is because I have never truly considered Lebanon a part of the barbaric construct we call the ‘Islamic World’. Indeed, after the State of Israel, Lebanon seems to me the most civilised and modern country in the greater Middle East.

While it’s true that Muslims now make up a slight majority in the country, the civilising effects of Lebanon’s Christian elite extend deeply into its social and educational fabric. As a consequence, Lebanese Muslims tend to be more ‘secular’ than Syrians or Jordanians, and arguably for reasons directly attributable to Lebanon’s cultural diversity (one of the very time that phrase can be used positively).

If you look through an album of photographs taken in modern Beirut, you might find it difficult to distinguish the streets and piazzas from parts of Portugal, Spain or southern Italy. Despite the ancient mosques and grungy madrassas, one will also notice billboard advertisements for premium wines and Heineken Lager, bare-armed women in tight jeans and sunglasses, as well as gaudy bars and upmarket pubs catering to American and English tourists respectively.

The Lebanese Christians are proudly aware of this geo-cultural strangeness and view any comparison with other Arab states like Saudi Arabia or Jordan as wholly derogatory. Biology plays a role in this. Though all Arabs are a mixture of ancient ancestries, the Lebanese are known to be especially diverse. Genetic investigation of the Christian community has revealed a mixture of Greek, Arab and Western European genetic markers, the last being a hangover from the time when Lebanon functioned as a base for the Crusaders, some of whom remained, intermarried and got lost in the biological stew.

Though we in the West might look down on sectarian attitudes, it is surely easier to sympathise in this case. Imagine for a moment that we in England belonged to a modern, affluent and liberal(ish) country neighboured to the North and East by lands of hellish confusion. We would all eventually come to rely on sheer hostility to prevent the damaging integration of outside elements, especially if defensive alliances seem unavailable.

Only a few miles from the wine bars of Lebanon, the sub-humans of ISIS cut the heads off people accused of summoning demons or practicing witchcraft. Just a short drive from a Beirut Miss Universe pageant is a tent-city where women cannot even leave their homes.

It is hard to think of a more terrifying fragility or a more perfect misery than that of the Christian Lebanese.

D, LDN.

Don’t Deny Islamic State are Islamic.

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American Liberty, Barack Obama, BBC, Christianity and Islam, Civilisation, Counter-Jihad, Counterjihad, Cultural Marxism, Defend the modern world, Demographics of Europe, English Defence League, Islam and the West, Islamification of Britain, Islamophobia, Multiculturalism, Muslims, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census

As I write, the Jordanian air force is bombing ISIS positions in Syria, ostensibly in retaliation for the Nazi-like killing of one of its pilots last week. A photo on the Daily Mail website shows a Jordanian patriot writing a message on a bomb in marker pen (an American tradition) before the vessel that will carry it takes flight. His message reads as follows: “For you, the enemies of Islam”.

I have a feeling Liberals will waste no time in circulating that image. After all, it paints a rather pleasant, reassuring picture. The insinuation is that ISIS (and by logical extension, all radical Jihadis) are just a deviation from the true practice and theory of the Islamic religion.

I’m afraid we must pour water on this hopeful notion. It’s not only wrong but dangerous to believe. Despite the claims of the majority, Islamic State/ISIS are entirely faithful to Islamic teaching and (even at some very brutal extremes) rarely in direct violation of the commandments of the Qur’an itself.

The very video which depicts the burning of the Jordanian pilot is titled “Healing the Believers’ Chests”. If that sounds archaic, that’s probably because it is a direct reference to a Qur’anic verse – chapter 9, verse 14:

“Fight them! Allah will chastise them at your hands, and He will lay them low and give you victory over them, and He will heal the chests of those who are believers.”

If ISIS are not Islamic, or are somehow acting in deviation from the true word of Allah, how might that verse be construed differently? What have they got wrong? To me, it seems pretty self-explanatory, like most of the Qur’an. If I might be permitted to update the language of the verse and make it even less ambiguous, it seems to say

“Fight against the unbelievers and kill the infidel! God will support you from the heavens and ultimately grant you victory, healing the wounds of the faithful.”

What have I got wrong? No doubt, I have taken it ‘out of context’. Yes, that sounds believable enough. Perhaps there’s a ‘context’ in which the exhortation has a less offensive, even defensive character.

However none of the battles described in the Qur’an would have been possible were it not for Islamic provocation. The brave heathens, Christians and Jews of the Arabian peninsula who sought to retain their cultural traditions were themselves acting defensively. The language of Jihad, that is of violent conquest, was openly used by the early believers, and by Mohammad himself.

The sharia law being enforced by ISIS in the territory under its control is also far from unorthodox. Not just in the IS but in Saudi Arabia and Iran, women are forced to conceal their beauty to spare men the dilemma of whether or not to rape them. In many Muslim countries adulterers, blasphemers and libertines are subject to the death penalty, whether enacted with stone, axe or rope. In many countries, thieves have parts of their body crudely amputated (usually before a gathered crowd). ISIS might be overzealous in enforcing these laws, but they are in no way different in their motivation or understanding of Islam.

So if you want to be taken at all seriously, don’t deny ISIS are Islamic. It’s no longer feasible, if it ever was to begin with.

D, LDN.

Welcome to the West, Mr Aboutaleb.

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Counter-Jihad, Counterjihad, Defend the modern world, Demographics of Europe, Dutch life, Integration, Islam in Europe, Moderate Muslims, Multiculturalism, Muslims, Netherlands, Paris Attacks, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Rotterdam mayor

There is no greater privilege than to be a citizen of the Western World. Here, we are rich, happy, free and our culture is a standard to which all other civilisations aspire.

The possibilities open to a citizen of Amsterdam, London or Paris are boundless. There are no death squads or virtue police here, no public lashings or beheadings. People don’t defecate in the street or spread HIV by raping babies (as in South Africa). Here you are guaranteed a very high standard of living and liberty. Though this obviously should never be taken lightly, sadly all too often it is.

I’m not an ethno-nationalist; to me, being ‘Western’ requires no qualification of blood. Jews, though they originate in the East, are Westerners. Japanese people are Westerners. African-Americans are Westerners. Atheist Turks, Persians and Arabs can also be Western so long as they renounce loyalty to Islam and terror.

So when the Moroccan Mayor of Rotterdam, Ahmed Aboutaleb shocked the Dutch media by telling those Muslims who do not wish to integrate to ‘pack their bags and fuck off’, I was pleased to see that his countrymen were quick to offer their solidarity and appreciation.

The surprise his outburst generated is in-itself tragic. Being a Moroccan doesn’t mean you are wedded to barbarism. Iranians are not genetically predestined for theocracy. Black people are not born for the ghetto. Your race doesn’t (or shouldn’t) condemn you to anything.

And if you’re a Muslim reading this, perhaps you can one day call yourself a Westerner too. You’d better be quick about it though. Time is fast running out to pick a side.

D, LDN.

Nigel Farage and Islam.

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Conservative defections, Douglas Carswell, Elections 2019, General Elections 2015, Mark Reckless, Muslims UKIP, Nigel Farage, Nigel Farage Islam, Nigel Farage Wife, Polls 2015, UKIP General Election, UKIP Immigration, UKIP manifesto, UKIP Racist, UKIP Rising

Last week, the United Kingdom Independence Party gained its second MP. Mark Reckless, a Tory defector, overturned a Conservative majority of 10,000, rubbishing most early predictions and lighting a fire in the bellies of right-wingers up and down the country.

Could UKIP win in 2015? Is it still impossible? These were and are no longer stupid questions to ask. Though it’s highly unlikely that UKIP could secure even half the required number of seats in 2015, these enquires have a longer shelf-life.

Could UKIP win in 2019/20? I strongly believe it could, yes. Does that excite me? I’m not sure.

Politically, as I’ve said previously, I’m quite difficult to categorise. I tend to agree with the right on some things and the left on others. Consequently, UKIP have many policies that appeal to me, and many that scare me.

Nevertheless, I would be willing to grant my vote to UKIP in spite of any uncertainty if the party was able to present a valid policy on issue of most concern: the issue of the Islamisation of Britain. On this matter, I’m afraid, UKIP still has a lot to make clear.

Given the repeated accusation of racism by the media, Nigel Farage has tried to present a liberal image on the subject of ethnic difference. He has allowed numerous ethnic minority candidates to stand for the party, and tends to make a big deal of them when they do, forcing them in front of any camera in his vicinity. He routinely badmouths the British National Party and its leader Nick Griffin and claims (almost convincingly) to have a multi-coloured social circle.

When asked about Islam in particular, the ex-city-trader all but winces and then goes on to reheat the (phony) distinction between ‘moderates’ and ‘radicals’. Indeed, on his Wikipedia page, Farage is quoted as having endorsed the following sentiment:

“You’re welcome to come here and to have your children here… but if you’re coming here to take us over, you’re not welcome.”

I’ll be frank. This bizarre way of describing the issue greatly alarms me. The problem of Islam in the West has never been a dichotomy between peaceful immigrants and fire-breathing colonists. They are one and the same. Either Farage doesn’t accept this and is speaking honestly, or he does and is lying to wrong-foot the liberal inquisition. Either way, he does not seem ready to speak about the challenge in detail.

In recent months, Farage has been pressured by his restless electorate to comment on the war crimes in Rotherham. His response has been to unload his clip on social services and political correctness. The third, more essential, element of culture and race he has left untouched.

And what about the members of his party who do have the guts to raise this issue? Again, Farage’s behaviour doesn’t inspire hope. When a candidate for the European Elections tweeted that Islam ‘is evil’, he was expelled from the party within hours, seemingly without being granted the right of reply. Later, a local activist took to saying bad things about Muhammad’s sex life on facebook and suffered the same swift reprobation.

There is also the problems of Tory defections. It’s all well and good for one or two Tories to jump ship and in doing so bolster the profile of the party. However, if – as Farage hungrily predicts – the drips become a flood, the result will surely be the Toryfication (and thus de-radicalisation) of UKIP as a whole. For all his popularity, Douglas Carswell (the first defector) is a pedestrian social-democrat on most issues, and he is already being touted as the Farage’s successor. This will kill off any hope of UKIP stepping up to the Islamic challenge.

I’m far from saying that Farage is not the right man to vote for in 2015. Indeed, a strong UKIP performance would delight me. It would show that the centre ground is rapidly losing its force of gravity; that the electorate is beginning to read more broadly than the mainstream press; and most of all, that there is finally an appetite for radicalism developing amongst the hedges and bowling greens of real England.

If UKIP disappoint that radicalism, it will not die. It will just have to wait for a real leader to arise.

D, LDN.