The price that Ed Miliband is prepared to pay to win the Muslim vote

Allison Pearson writing words of truth in the Telegraph.

’Tis the election season, so promises fall from the lips of our leaders over key voting groups like blossom from an apple tree. Some promises are more cynical and stinky than others.

Take Ed Miliband, who told Muslim News last week that a future Labour government would outlaw Islamophobia, making it an aggravated crime.

Do you reckon the Labour leader has read any of the recent reports into child-sex grooming gangs? You know, the ones that concluded that the main reason local authorities, police and social services did nothing to protect thousands of young girls from abuse at the hands of mainly Pakistani men was because they were afraid of appearing racist?

A phobia is an irrational fear.

It’s perfectly rational to be outraged by the figures that follow: Rochdale 65, Rotherham 1,400, Newcastle 93, Manchester 650, Derby 27… and on and on, in pain and infamy.

These figures are the recorded instances of vile abuse against girls in Labour areas that rely on the Muslim vote. When tallied up, the tally stands at well in excess of 4,000 children.

As Denis McShane, former Labour MP for Rotherham, has admitted “misplaced racial sensitivity” – aka fear of being seen as “Islamophobic” – prevented him from burrowing into the widespread sexual abuse allegations and the oppression of women in the Muslim community.

A new aggravated crime of “Islamophobia” makes it even less likely that such brutes will be outed. Meanwhile, if Ed Miliband has anything to do with it, I too will have my name recorded by the police. Back in February, I wrote an article here about Britain’s first elected Muslim mayor, Lutfur Rahman, who was clearly running Tower Hamlets in east London as if it were some personal fiefdom in Bangladesh. Mr Rahman was accused of “subverting democracy” and “systematically stealing votes”.

Anyone who dared to challenge the Mayor’s shocking behaviour was branded – wait for it – Islamophobic.
The police did almost nothing to investigate allegations of widespread electoral fraud. It fell to four local individuals to bring Rahman to court and to that superb journalist, Andrew Gilligan of this parish, to keep up the pressure.

After my article appeared, the Telegraph received a lengthy complaint from an organisation called Tower Hamlets First, which demanded a prominently printed apology to Rahman, and described my piece on him as “thoroughly contemptible in the moral sense”.

If Ed Miliband’s new hard line on Islamophobia becomes law, men like Rahman could thrive unchallenged and our country will be even less able to defend itself against practices and customs that we find utterly abhorrent.
Does the Labour leader prefer to offer comfort to the Lutfur Rahmans, or should he, instead, be helping abused girls from the working class that his party was set up to protect? Is that a price you’re willing to pay, Ed, to keep the Muslim vote onside? Really? 

If Miliband’s definition of Islamophobia includes shouting until one’s last breath against the disgusting chauvinists who prey on young girls and treat women as second-class citizens, then please do count me in. I’d gladly go to jail for that. The alternative, you see, is throroughly contemptible in the moral sense.