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Donald Trump’s UN onslaught connected London and Sadiq Khan revived an aged complaint — that Britain’s superior is sliding into “sharia law.” The assertion is mendacious arsenic a substance of law, but it draws unit from genuine controversies successful London: spiritual councils that disadvantage women, escaped code curtailed successful the sanction of nationalist order, and Britain’s catastrophic mishandling of grooming gangs.
Driving the news
Speaking astatine the UN General Assembly, Trump accused London of wanting “to spell to sharia law” nether its “terrible” politician Sadiq Khan. Almost simultaneously, the Daily Mail published a agelong study branding London “the Sharia superior of the West,” highlighting Islamic councils issuing fatwas, discriminatory divorcement practices, and a lawsuit wherever a Quran-burning protester was slashed connected the thoroughfare portion his attacker was spared jail.Also Read: Your countries are going to hell’: Trump blasts Europe’s migration astatine UNGA; accuses London politician of ‘seeking Sharia law'
Trump’s assertion is legally baseless: English instrumentality remains supreme. But it resonates due to the fact that it amplifies precise existent failures and contradictions successful Britain’s handling of religion, justice, and integration.
Sharia councils — de jure vs de facto
- Origins and scale. The archetypal Islamic Sharia Council opened successful Leyton successful 1982. Today determination are astatine slightest 5 successful London, and possibly dozens much informal bodies crossed the UK. A 2017 reappraisal estimated 85 nationwide, with London, Birmingham, Bradford and Dewsbury arsenic hubs.
- Function. These councils woody with marriage, divorce, inheritance, and fiscal disputes. They person nary powerfulness implicit transgression law. But successful practice, galore Muslims crook to them first, giving them societal authorization that acold outweighs their ineligible standing.
- Discrimination. Reports to Parliament and NGOs papers councils denying women adjacent divorcement rights, asking wives to wage husbands to unafraid release, oregon pressuring women into mediation that leaves them astatine a disadvantage. Because galore Islamic marriages aren’t registered civilly, women often cannot entree English household courts. The effect is simply a shadiness strategy that traps women successful abusive marriages.
Free code and the complaint of “back-door blasphemy”
The Quran-burning lawsuit exposed a glaring tension:
- The protester. Hamit Coskun acceptable occurrence to a Quran extracurricular the Turkish consulate, shouting anti-Islam slogans. He was convicted of a public-order offence connected grounds of “hostility towards Muslims.”
- The attacker. A Muslim antheral slashed Coskun with a weapon but received lone a suspended sentence. Judges insisted they were pursuing sentencing guidelines, but the cognition was unmistakable: blasphemy was punished much harshly than violence.
- The reaction. Secularists warned this amounted to reinstating blasphemy laws done the backmost door. They argued that violative expression, nevertheless distasteful, indispensable beryllium tolerated, portion unit indispensable ne'er beryllium excused.
- The Starmer controversy. The contented returned to Parliament successful precocious 2024, erstwhile Labour MP Tahir Ali asked Keir Starmer if the authorities would legislate against desecration of spiritual texts and prophets of Abrahamic faiths. Starmer condemned the enactment arsenic “awful” but stopped abbreviated of ruling retired caller laws, framing it alternatively arsenic portion of tackling hatred. Secular groups warned that this was a caller effort to smuggle successful blasphemy protections, years aft the UK had abolished them. For critics, Labour looked erstwhile again similar it was pandering to spiritual sensitivities astatine the disbursal of escaped expression.
Fatwas and English courts
Concerns escalated erstwhile a High Court justice successful the Tafida Raqeeb lawsuit mentioned “the payment of a fatwa” portion allowing parents to question further attraction for their brain-damaged child. The ruling made wide that English instrumentality was decisive, but adjacent citing a fatwa gave the content that spiritual rulings were creeping into secular judgments.
Grooming gangs — the ungraded down the rhetoric
Trump’s “sharia London” assertion gains traction due to the fact that it taps into Britain’s nonaccomplishment to face group-based kid intersexual exploitation:
- The scandal. In towns similar Rotherham, Rochdale and Telford, thousands of girls were abused implicit decades. Many perpetrators were Pakistani-heritage men, often moving successful groups.
- Institutional cowardice. Authorities ignored victims for years, fearing that acknowledging the taste signifier would beryllium branded racist. This allowed maltreatment to flourish unchecked.
- Political fallout. The acold close seized connected the scandals arsenic impervious of Muslim exceptionalism. The near was accused of denial. Communities were near mistrustful of constabulary and councils.
- National inquiry. In 2025, Keir Starmer yet announced a statutory nationwide enquiry — a designation that piecemeal reports had failed. But decades of neglect had already cemented the content that Britain bent its institutions to debar offending minorities.
This past is the substance down Trump’s rhetoric. When helium says “sharia law,” helium is exploiting the representation of grooming gangs — a existent British nonaccomplishment — and spinning it into a communicative of London arsenic a metropolis already lost.
Trump vs Khan — a idiosyncratic feud connected a planetary stage
Trump and Khan person been astatine each other’s throats for astir a decade.
Khan opposed Trump’s question ban; Trump called him a “stone acold loser.” For Trump, Khan is the cleanable foil: a Muslim politician of a planetary city, liberal, pro-immigration, pro-diversity. By linking Khan to “sharia law,” Trump casts him not conscionable arsenic a governmental hostile but arsenic a awesome of Western weakness.
So, is London the ‘Sharia capital’?
- Legally: No. UK instrumentality governs London. Sharia councils person nary binding authority.
- Practically: Yes, sharia councils exert power successful household and assemblage disputes, and their practices often disadvantage women. Combined with lenient attraction of spiritual vigilantism and decades of organization soundlessness connected grooming gangs, London does look to run with treble standards.
- Politically: The “Sharia capital” statement is simply a caricature. But it gains traction due to the fact that it exaggerates genuine problems Britain has failed to solve.
London is not nether sharia law. But it is simply a metropolis wherever informal tribunals disadvantage women, wherever courts person blurred the enactment betwixt nationalist bid and blasphemy, and wherever authorities failed catastrophically to support susceptible girls. Trump’s rhetoric is crude, but it draws powerfulness from these unresolved failures, which the UK hasn’t recognised successful the archetypal place.
