This article is part of our EU Referendum debate series, click here to read more.
Articles to Remain in the EU:
Why I am voting AGAINST BREXIT
The Muslim vote on the Referendum must be to REMAIN
Articles to Leave the EU:
The Muslim Brexit – No Justice No Peace
Muslims in Britain have simply felt battered over the past few years with each passing week intensifying the Islamophobia. This concerted and calculated frenzy feeds into one right wing discourse or another – whether it be Britain First, UKIP, Neocon think tanks, the Government, the Establishment (incorporating politicians across the spectrum), TV/Radio and Print Media or the paid lackeys such as the many ‘counter extremism’ think tanks/scams who work to give some credence to the daily hatred spewed at Muslims. This has all created an image of “the other”, the enemy within, where difference is no longer to be tolerated and integration – misused; as they actually mean assimilation – is the key to harmony.
This month we come to a referendum vote on whether Britain should stay in the EU or not. Whilst the general discourse for most Brits is around the economy, and our country’s resources and immigration, many Muslims like myself are more concerned about our Government’s behaviour were they not obliged to be reined in every now and then by an outside judiciary and a human rights act. The constantly ramped up threat of terrorism has enabled the Government to implement shady secret courts,(1) where restrictions on information and even charges and evidence is withheld from both the defendant and their legal representation. The threat of secret courts and control orders which will shortly be applied to “non-violent extremists” put people like me firmly in the firing line solely for holding certain religious views and for campaigning on issues such as Palestine and its occupation.
Theresa May, our Home Secretary who failed to even define “Extremism”(2) in both an R4 interview and in a letter response to me, has only last month stated that Britain should leave the European convention on human rights(3) regardless of the referendum vote. She states that,
“The ECHR can bind the hands of parliament, adds nothing to our prosperity, makes us less secure by preventing the deportation of dangerous foreign nationals – and does nothing to change the attitudes of governments like Russia’s when it comes to human rights”.
So, she wants to stay in the EU but does not want it to get in the way of draconian orders, which she can issue based on “intelligence”. The ECHR and the ECJ have in many cases stopped Theresa May from acting on her whims and a neocon agenda with no regard for justice.
My concern is that without any restraints on our Government, Britons (especially Muslim Britons) will suffer more injustice by not remaining in the EU. We will lose a very important recourse to justice – a last legal recourse to justice. Let us bear in mind that this Government has stripped 3rd generation Brits of their citizenship from as far back as 2013,(4) and they have done so without any public or media uproar as to what this actually means. Just think about it: their parent(s) were born in the UK and they (the kids) are also born in the UK but they have been stripped of their nationality. Where do they belong if not in Britain? This power lies with Theresa May who, without recourse to courts and acting on advice from intelligence services or others, can simply revoke the citizenship of dual nationals with immediate effect where she believes it is ‘conducive to the public good’. This means she can make the decision based on what she believes an individual might do, rather than because of specific acts. If we exit the EU then the neocon Government will find it easier to shed the shackles of justice provided by the ECHR and ECJ, and Britain would continue to veer further and further away from justice and human rights, needing only to use security and the threat of terrorism as a reason. This government carelessly malign Muslims daily, as Cameron showed by calling Shaykh Suliman Gani an extremist and a supporter of IS. Only a concerted campaign resulted in his backtracking and saying he meant something else.
A victory for the LEAVE campaign will strengthen the political positions of the likes of Boris Johnson (our very own Donald Trump) who will, as a result stand a good chance of replacing David Cameron as Prime Minister/Leader. Then there’s Michael Gove whose agenda has been hell-bent on attacking Muslims even before he became a politician and wrote as a journalist. He is the man who, as Education Secretary, started the attack our Madrassas and wanted to impose conditions such as having the police approve teacher appointments.
Leaving Europe will send a very clear message that Britain does not want foreigners and Britain will then embark on becoming more “British” again. This will mean further demands on Muslims to assimilate and shed their own values and beliefs. The LEAVE campaign has used the threat of Turkey joining the EU to get people to vote LEAVE – the underlying issue really being that Turkey is seen as a Muslim country.
I make no apologies for a very narrow or, as I prefer to call it, a finely-focused view – Britain out of Europe sets it on a path which will harm us. The Informed Muslim vote must be to REMAIN, for our sakes and for the sake of our children.
[donationbanner]
Source: www.islam21c.com
Notes:
(1) What are secret courts. http://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/jun/14/what-are-secret-courts
(2) Theresa May R4 Interview http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02r8z20
(3) Britain should leave the European convention on Human rights. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/25/uk-must-leave-european-convention-on-human-rights-theresa-may-eu-referendum
(4) ‘Medieval Exile’: The 42 Britons stripped of their citizenship. https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2013/02/26/medieval-exile-the-21-britons-stripped-of-their-citizenship/
1 Comment
Regarding the video, a couple of things stood out to make me skeptical that its as black and white as he makes out.
On sovereignty he says we can ignore EU laws if we want to, strangely no one on the Remain side mentions that in debates and sure enough its not true, we ARE bound by EU wide laws http://europa.eu/eu-law/decision-making/legal-acts/index_en.htm but not directives.
On the issue of negotiating trade deals he can only relate to how things have been while we are in the EU. He says this is 1st year undergraduate basic stuff but again it hardly gets a mention by the Remain camp in debates. Why would that be when it sounds like such a compelling argument? Its been 40 years since we could negotiate them independently, all of his working life and more, so it must be impossible for him to say with certainty how it would go but neccesity is the mother of invention, lets be hopefull that we’ll manage. As we import more than we export it will be in the interest of those exporter nations to come to agreements with us. The time taken to leave the EU would have to be decided yet and could take that into account.
He made a big deal of manufacturer standards as though any goods from a manufacturer within the UK is automatically able to be sold across the EU and that leaving the EU would somehow make it harder for manufacturers. In fact UK manufacturers already need to work to strict (some say onerous) CE standards to be able to sell their goods anywhere in Europe including in the UK https://www.gov.uk/guidance/ce-marking and could just as easily continue to after a Brexit so whats the difference? Do China have trouble selling goods within the EU? In this globalised world manufacturers are used to working to quality standards. Manufacturers have been working to the BSI kitemark for over 100 years, then CE, then probably there will be global standards yet to be defined.
At that point i started thinking here’s someone not quite laying out all the facts.