I have a message for everyone. I will not be scared into silence when it comes to talking about radical Islam, British culture and multiculturalism.
There is a highly inaccurate and defamatory report published that accused GB News and myself of being an anti-Muslim hate channel and Islamophobic.
This report was put forward by the Centre for Media Monitoring. So it sounds really official, but who is that really? Well, it’s a project by the Muslim Council of Britain.
Now, there are numerous inaccuracies in this report, and I think it calls into question the validity of some of the things that they say. They essentially claim that I was being Islamophobic.
To say that I think there is a Trojan horse in Britain that wants to harm us. Well, the report cherry picks a quote where I say that people hate our way of life and want to harm us. All right. But should we have a little look at what I’m actually talking about?
I’m talking about the Iranian regime planting terrorist sleeper cells in Britain, something our own intelligence and security services are on record warning us about.
That’s not about Muslims, is it? That’s about Iranian terrorists. They make reference to me joking about the now disgraced former archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, doing more to promote Islam than Christianity.
It is a widely held belief amongst many Christians that Welby, who has been forced to resign amid a child abuse scandal, was not doing a particularly good job of promoting Christianity in the UK. That is not a comment on Islam. It’s a comment on Justin Welby and his priorities.
Now, they accuse me of saying that Sharia compliant pensions are one step away from blasphemy laws, and that that is apparently Islamophobic. Well, I’m sorry to say this, but what have we actually seen since then? This Government not ruling out actual blasphemy laws?
They say that GB News risks inciting violence against Muslims, but as we’ve seen there are serious inaccuracies in this report. And I think that the authors should consider the consequences of labelling presenters like myself as Islamophobic, because there could very well be serious consequences to that indeed, couldn’t there?
The report makes reference to me talking about two tier policing in Britain, and that perhaps sometimes elements of the British Muslim community get an easier ride. Well, that is an honestly held belief, I’m afraid, as the incident outside Rochdale police station following the Manchester Airport incident highlights.
I was very surprised that there did not appear to be a strong police response to that. And I do think that the police were too afraid to act there.
Now, they say that GB News is responsible for 50 per cent of the media’s coverage on Islam. Well, I’m afraid that some of that will include things like Pakistani grooming gangs, and the Batley Grammar School incident where a teacher has been forced into hiding by a staunchly Muslim community. It will include things like an autistic child’s mum being forced to apologise to Muslim elders after her son scuffed a copy of the Quran. It will include things like armed police at Christmas markets across the country to protect us from radical Islamists, and I’m afraid it will include things like we literally saw today in the House of Commons, where a muslim independent MP stood up and said that he didn’t really think that incestuous cousin marriage should be illegal in Britain.
I make no apology for talking about that stuff. I make no apology for standing up for British culture, British values and our British way of life. The report states GB News was particularly focused on domestic stories on topics involving Islam in comparison with our rival channels, where foreign news contributed a greater amount of their output.
Well, the clues in the name, all right, we are GB News. We focus primarily on what’s happening right here, and this is why they’re actually coming for us. This is why they’re actually coming for us. Because the people of Britain are voting with their TV remotes. We are now beating Sky News, and we’re snapping at BBC News’s heels. We have a huge audience and it’s growing all the time. This is what they’re scared of. So they try to smear us.
They make other claims about me in this report that are misleading, and I have evidence here to prove that. But frankly, we haven’t got all night, so I’ll finish with this. I am a presenter on GB News. Great Britain means a great deal to me. We have had documented incidents where the fear of stoking racial tensions or being called Islamophobic, has prevented justice being served when it comes to things like grooming gangs. And there’s the proof of it right there in that headline in their official report.
I have no desire to be unfair to Muslims. They contribute a huge amount of good to this country, whether it’s in the public sector or in wider society. But at the same time, I will not succumb to the fear of being labeled as something that I am not an Islamophobe and I will not shy away from doing interviews with people like Britain’s most famous head teacher, when she spoke about the death threats her and her colleagues receive for wanting to stop a muslim prayer room in her school.
You can say what you like and you’re entitled to your opinion, but I’m going to keep doing my job.
