This has sneaked by pretty well unmentioned:
Government attempts to clamp down on expressions of religious hatred have cleared the Commons, but are set for a rocky ride in the House of Lords.
MPs gave the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill a third reading by 301 votes to 229, a majority of 72….
Liberal Democrat spokesman Alistair Carmichael said he was “embarrassed” that elected representatives were sending a bill to the Lords “that is so bad at this stage” when so much time had been spent on it.
“It is a bill that’s ill-conceived in its thinking, it will be dangerous in its execution and I’m confident we have not seen the last of it,” he said.
But Labour ex-Cabinet minister Frank Dobson said it was incumbent on MPs to protect their constituents from those who incited fear and hatred.
An attempt by the Lib Dems, backed by the Tories, that would have outlawed religious hatred as a pretext for stirring up hatred against a racial group was defeated by 291 votes to 233, a government majority of 58.
Labour MP Ann Cryer, who backed the amendment, said she was concerned that restrictions contained in the bill would stifle debate.
Well exactly – and what we need now is open debate about Islam, from within and from outside, which isn’t afraid to be critical. The idea which this bill effectively promotes, that any attack on Islam is an attack on Muslims, needs to be strongly opposed.
Tony Blair’s comments are all very well:
“This is not an isolated criminal act we are dealing with,” he said.
“It is an extreme and evil ideology whose roots lie in a perverted and poisonous misinterpretation of the religion of Islam.”
Mr Blair met Muslim MPs on Wednesday morning to discuss how to tackle “this evil within the Muslim community”.
“In the end, this can only be taken on and defeated by the community itself,” he said.
But the followers of this extreme and evil ideology are quite clear that they are the true followers of the Islamic faith. And there’s a lot of them.
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