Tag Archive for: Great Britain

How CO2 Supply Chain Mayhem Almost Caused a Meat Shortage in Britain

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In recent months, many of us have faced empty shelves, long lines, and frustrating delays as supply chains have seized up around the country, and indeed the world. Some have argued that the government should step in to fix these issues, blaming the problems on “corporate greed” and “the free market”. But while it may be tempting to blame private companies for our current woes and see the government as the savior, the reality is not that simple. Indeed, far from being the solution, government intervention in the market is arguably the primary cause of these problems in the first place.

A good case study for this issue is Great Britain. Back in September, the nation’s supply chain issues got so bad that they almost had major disruptions in their food supply. The UK government has been intervening in an attempt to fix the problems in the short run, but the situation is still extremely precarious.

So who is responsible for these issues? Well, let’s follow the supply chain link-by-link and see if it can lead us to the culprit.

The immediate problem that food producers are facing is a shortage of food-grade carbon dioxide (CO2). The meat industry is particularly affected by this shortage, since CO2 is used in many meat production processes. But aside from that, the gas also plays a key role in modified atmosphere packaging, which is used to prolong the shelf life of many food products. It’s also used in carbonated drinks (hence the name) like beer and soda, and in its solid form as dry ice it is used to keep fresh food cool during transportation.

Why is there a shortage of CO2? Well, most food-grade CO2 comes from fertilizer plants, because CO2 is a byproduct of the fertilizer manufacturing process. These plants, however, have been producing far less CO2 than normal. So to understand why there’s so little CO2, we need to investigate the fertilizer plants. This brings us to the next link in the chain.

Two of the biggest fertilizer plants in the UK are owned by a company called CF Industries. Together, they normally produce about 60 percent of the UK’s food-grade CO2. However, these plants were actually shut down for a large part of September, which drastically reduced the UK’s CO2 production.

The reason they were shut down is because natural gas, an essential part of the fertilizer process, has been very expensive in recent months. With the price of this key input so high, it was actually uneconomical for the plants to operate, so they decided to shut down temporarily in hopes of restarting their operations once the price of natural gas came back down. But why is natural gas suddenly so expensive? This brings us to the third link in the chain.

First, to say that natural gas prices are high in Britain is really quite the understatement. According to Industry group Oil & Gas UK, wholesale prices for gas in September were up 250 percent since January, and had increased 70 percent since August. As one UK energy CEO remarked, this is “the most extreme energy market in decades.”

So what’s causing the high prices? A number of factors. High global demand has played a role, especially since roughly 60 percent of the UK’s natural gas supply is imported. Lower solar and wind output have also been factors, as well as outages at some nuclear stations. The cold winter in 2020 also resulted in depleted stocks (since people use natural gas to heat their homes), and several gas platforms in the North Sea have closed to perform maintenance that was paused because of the COVID-19 lockdowns.

But one of the biggest sources of price volatility is the dearth of natural gas storage facilities in the UK.

“The UK currently has very modest amounts of storage, less than 6% of annual demand.” writes Michael Bradshaw, a Professor of Global Energy at the University of Warwick. “In Germany, France, and Italy, storage covers about 20% of annual demand,” he continues for context. Another report noted that the UK has enough storage to last for about 7 days, whereas Germany and France have roughly 90 days of storage.

While storage is far from the only factor affecting natural gas prices, it certainly plays a significant role. But why does Britain have so little storage capacity? This brings us to the final link in the chain.

One of the reasons for Britain’s low storage capacity is that a storage facility called Rough, which used to provide a significant percentage of the UKs natural gas storage, was decommissioned in 2017 as a result of age-related deterioration.

Industry leaders were concerned about the resulting lack of storage at the time, and have been warning about the issue ever since.

“Rough makes up an impressive 70% of the UK’s storage working gas volume,” Timera Energy noted back in 2017, when permanent closure was still being deliberated. “This can be contrasted with Rough’s contribution to the UK’s daily deliverability, at around 25%. And it is the deliverability that the UK market will miss most.”

They go on to explicitly discuss the likely impact of the closure on the price of natural gas. “The loss of deliverability should boost spot price volatility as it reduces the buffer of supply flexibility available to respond to swings in daily demand…The loss of working gas volume is likely to mean that supply shocks…have a sharper and more prolonged price impact.”

The need for more storage was reiterated in 2019 by another industry leader named InfraStrata Plc. “There is more demand in the market than we can satisfy,” said John Wood, the CEO of InfraStrata. “The market in the U.K. is sending out strong economic signals for additional gas storage capacity.”

So why wasn’t more storage built? Well, as it turns out, natural gas storage is taxed and regulated very heavily in the UK, much more so than other industries. Indeed, one of the largest gas storage operators in the country, called Storengy, explicitly called attention to these problems back in 2018, pointing out the “punitive” and “extortionate” tax levels that are applied to storage facilities as well as the numerous regulations that burden the industry.

As a result of these barriers, many potential storage projects have remained on the shelf, since they are prohibitively expensive in the current business environment. Thus, even though the demand is clearly there, the market has been unable to meet it, because taxes and regulations have severely crippled the industry.

This analysis is hardly exhaustive, of course. But at least with respect to the storage issue, it seems clear that government intervention in the market is the primary cause of the food supply chain disruptions.

One of the interesting things about this story is how it highlights the plethora of people, items, and systems that work together to keep our grocery shelves full. First, we discovered that food producers rely on CO2. That led us to investigate fertilizer plants and the crazy natural gas market, and then from there we explored natural gas storage and learned about the many ways that government intervention has been crippling that industry. Of course, most people wouldn’t intuitively connect gas storage regulations with food availability, but the rippling unintended consequences of these policies are very real nonetheless.

In his famous essay “I, Pencil,” Leonard Read similarly draws attention to the “innumerable antecedents” of everyday items, such as the seemingly simple lead pencil.

“Just as you cannot trace your family tree back very far, so is it impossible for me to name and explain all my antecedents,” Read wrote, speaking as the pencil. He goes on to discuss some of the many ancestors of the pencil, the people and things that went into producing it, and he points out how they all depend on one another. Indeed, you can’t mess with the trucking industry without impacting the production of pencils, just as you can’t mess with natural gas storage without impacting food supplies.

With that said, trucking and natural gas are not only ancestors of pencils and food. They are also ancestors of many other products, and this leads to an important insight. In reality, it’s actually somewhat misleading to speak of supply chains, as if the economy consisted of independent, linear processes. The economy is much more accurately characterized as one giant supply web, a multiplicity of interconnected processes that all depend on each other in various ways.

With this in mind, it quickly becomes apparent why interfering with the economy can be so dangerous. When the government breaks one part of the web, they aren’t just impacting one chain, they are creating countless unintended consequences, many of which are impossible to foresee.

If we’re lucky, those consequences will only lead to higher prices. If we’re not so lucky, empty grocery shelves await.

To address the looming crisis, the UK government ended up bailing out CF Industries, the company that owns the fertilizer plants. The deal, which was finalized on September 21, resulted in one of the two plants resuming operations, with the UK government providing “limited financial support,” which the Environment Secretary later clarified was “going to be into many millions, possibly the tens of millions [of euros].”

Since then, the government has brokered a deal between CF Industries and its CO2 buyers. Though the details are unclear, the government seems to be involved in setting the price of CO2, which would constitute even more intervention in the market.

But intervention is not the solution here. When governments intervene, they inevitably distort price signals, leading to increasingly inefficient outcomes. The real solution is for the government to stop causing the problem in the first place by removing the taxes and regulations that are standing in the way of the natural gas storage market.

Granted, it will take some time before the storage market can adjust, but even in the interim, the best way to address these problems is to let markets and prices do their thing.

COLUMN BY

Patrick Carroll

Patrick Carroll has a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Waterloo and is an Editorial Fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Tommy Robinson and the Death of Britain

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Sharia justice in the UK. My latest in FrontPage:

As Tommy Robinson headed into court for his sentencing Thursday, he wore a t-shirt that read: “Convicted of Journalism.” And it’s true. Tommy Robinson is heading back to jail for doing what journalists routinely do: ask questions of defendants heading into courtrooms. The gaggle of establishment media journalists who peppered Tommy himself with questions as he entered the court have not been arrested.

British authorities claimed that Tommy Robinson had prejudiced the outcome of the trial of several members of a Muslim rape gang. This is arrant nonsense: the trial had been completed, and Tommy was asking them what they thought of their having been convicted. There was, however, a gag order on the proceedings, and it was on the basis of the claim that Tommy violated that gag order that he is now back in prison.

Why was the gag order put into place? The obvious reason is that the British government and law enforcement authorities are deeply embarrassed by their abysmal record in dealing with Muslim rape gangs. In just one city, Rotherham, British officials “described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought as racist; others remembered clear direction from their managers not to do so.”

Nor did this happen only in Rotherham; all over the country, authorities let Muslim rape gangs run rampant for fear of being charged with “racism” and “Islamophobia” if they did anything about them. That is just what happened to Tommy Robinson when he dared to call attention to these gangs and the Islamic motivation behind their activities. The Muslim rape gangs went unreported, unprosecuted, and in general unstopped because of far-Left organizations including Hope Not Hate, Faith Matters, and Tell Mama, which waged relentless war against anyone and everyone who spoke out about this issue. They demonized as “Islamophobic,” “hateful” and “bigoted” anyone who said that there were Muslim rape gangs at all, and that they had to be stopped. They led the campaign to ban Pamela Geller and me from entering the country, when one of the events we had discussed going to was a rally against the Muslim rape gangs.

Hope Not Hate has scrubbed the evidence, but it used to be possible to search for “grooming” (as these gangs are usually called “grooming gangs” in the British media) at Hope Not Hate’s site. You would have seen that the vast majority of the articles mentioning this practice were attacking those who were calling attention to it and protesting against it.

The lives of tens of thousands of British girls are ruined today because of fascist “anti-hate” crusaders Nick Lowles and Matthew Collins of Hope Not Hate, Fiyaz Mughal of Faith Matters and Tell Mama, and their friends, supporters, and allies. Yet it is Tommy Robinson who is in prison. If Britain were even close to being a sane society today, Lowles, Mughal, and company, not Tommy Robinson, would be being subjected to scorching criticism, and there would be a thorough public reevaluation of how much the Left’s alliance with Islamic supremacism and smear campaign against foes of jihad terror has harmed the nation and its people.

But Britain is not a sane society today, and these sinister individuals — Lowles, Mughal, and the rest of them — continue to wield their considerable power and influence in British society. If Britain is ever to recover itself and stave off chaos, civil war and Sharia, Lowles, Collins, Mughal and others like them must be decisively repudiated and removed from all positions of influence, and their organizations exposed for what they are.

Instead, Tommy Robinson is back to jail, with a sentence that could be a death sentence at the hands of Muslim inmates who threatened and menaced him when he was in prison before.

The British government is clearly making an example of him in order to try to deter more Britons from protesting against its policies of mass Muslim immigration and its covering up of crimes perpetrated by Muslims in the name of Islam and in accord with its teachings. This conviction and sentencing shows not Tommy Robinson’s contempt of court, but the contempt of the British government for its own citizens, and particularly for the victims of Muslim rape gangs.

Britain has become a shabby little police state in which it is illegal to criticize Islam and mass Muslim migration in Britain today. Its death as a free society is by its own hand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

VIDEO: President Donald Trump with her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II

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Remarks by President Trump and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II at State Banquet | London, United Kingdom

Buckingham Palace
London, United Kingdom

8:49 P.M. BST

HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II:  Mr President, I am delighted to welcome you and Mrs. Trump to Buckingham Palace this evening, just 12 months after our first meeting at Windsor.

Visits by American Presidents always remind us of the close and longstanding friendship between the United Kingdom and the United States, and I am so glad that we have another opportunity to demonstrate the immense importance that both our countries attach to our relationship.

In the coming days, you will see some of our most treasured historical buildings, speak to the business leaders whose expertise and innovation drive our economies, and meet members of our armed services, past and present.  You will also travel to Portsmouth and Normandy to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day.

On that day — and on many occasions since — the armed forces of both our countries fought side-by-side to defend our cherished values of liberty and democracy.

Mr. President, in your State of the Union Address this year, you paid tribute to some of the American heroes who risked their lives, and we owe an immeasurable debt to the British, American, and Allied soldiers who began the liberation of Europe on the 6th of June 1944.

I paid my first State Visit to your country at the invitation of President Eisenhower.  As Supreme Allied Commander, he had ultimate responsibility for the execution of the Normandy landings.  In his headquarters in St. James’s Square — not far from Buckingham Palace — British and American officers worked closely together to plan the freedom of a continent, and it would be no exaggeration to say that millions of lives depended on their common endeavour.

As we face the new challenges of the 21st century, the anniversary of D-Day reminds us of all that our countries have achieved together.  After the shared sacrifices of the Second World War, Britain and the United States worked with other allies to build an assembly of international institutions to ensure that the horrors of conflict would never be repeated.

While the world has changed, we are forever mindful of the original purpose of these structures: nations working together to safeguard a hard-won peace.

Of course, it is not only our security which unites us, but our strong cultural links and shared heritage.  Every year, there are almost 4 million visits by Americans to the United Kingdom, with a great number claiming British descent.  And with your own Scottish ancestry, Mr. President, you too have a particular connection to this country.

We are also bound by the strength and breadth of our economic ties, as the largest investors in each other’s economies.  British companies in the United States employ over one million Americans, and the same is true vice versa.

Mr. President, as we look to the future, I am confident that our common values and shared interests will continue to unite us.  Tonight, we celebrate an alliance that has helped to ensure the safety and prosperity of both our peoples for decades, and which I believe will endure for many years to come.

Ladies and gentlemen, I invite you all to rise and drink a toast to President and Mrs. Trump, to the continued friendship between our two nations, and to the health, prosperity, and happiness of the people of the United States.

(A toast is given.)

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Your Majesty, Melania and I are profoundly honored to be your guests for this historic State Visit.  Thank you for your warm welcome, for this beautiful weather — (laughter) — your gracious hospitality, and Your Majesty’s nearly seven decades of treasured friendship with the United States of America.

This week, we commemorate a mighty endeavor of righteous nations and one of the greatest undertakings in all of history.  Seventy-five years ago, more than 150,000 Allied troops were preparing on this island to parachute into France, storm the beaches of Normandy, and win back our civilization.

As Her Majesty remembers, the British people had hoped and prayed and fought for this day for nearly five years.

When Britain stood alone during the Blitz of 1940 and 1941, the Nazi war machine dropped thousands of bombs on this country and right on this magnificent city.  Buckingham Palace alone was bombed on 16 separate occasions.

In that dark hour, the people of this nation showed the world what it means to be British.  They cleared wreckage from the streets, displayed the Union Jack from their shattered homes, and kept fighting on to victory.  They only wanted victory.

The courage of the United Kingdom’s sons and daughters ensured that your destiny would always remain in your own hands.

Through it all, the Royal Family was the resolute face of the Commonwealth’s unwavering solidarity.

In April of 1945, newspapers featured a picture of the Queen Mother visiting the women’s branch of the Army, watching a young woman repair a military truck engine.  That young mechanic was the future Queen — that great, great woman.  Her Majesty inspired her compatriots in that fight to support the troops, defend her homeland, and defeat the enemy at all cost.

We also pay tribute to Prince Philip’s distinguished and valiant service in the Royal Navy during the Second World War.

On D-Day, the Queen’s beloved father King George the Sixth delivered a stirring national address.  That day, he said, “After nearly five years of toil and suffering, we must renew that crusading impulse on which we entered the war and met its darkest hour…Our fight is against evil and for a world in which goodness and honor may be the foundation of the life of men in every land.”

This evening, we thank God for the brave sons of the United Kingdom and the United States who defeated the Nazis and the Nazi regime, and liberated millions from tyranny.

The bond between our nations was forever sealed in that “Great Crusade.”  As we honor our shared victory and heritage, we affirm the common values that will unite us long into the future: freedom, sovereignty, self-determination, the rule of law, and reverence for the rights given to us by Almighty God.

From the Second World War to today, Her Majesty has stood as a constant symbol of these priceless traditions.  She has embodied the spirit of dignity, duty, and patriotism that beats proudly in every British heart.

On behalf of all Americans, I offer a toast to the eternal friendship of our people, the vitality of our nations, and to the long, cherished, and truly remarkable reign of Her Majesty the Queen.  Thank you.

(A toast is given.)

END                8:59 P.M. BST

VIDEO: Gays Against Islamic [Shariah] Law Rally in Manchester

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This special edition of The Glazov Gang presents the Tommy English Moment with Tommy English, the leader of Gays Against Shariah-UK.

Tommy discussed Gays Against Shariah Rally in Manchester, announcing the march that will shed light on Islam’s teachings on homosexuality —  and call out the Left and LGBT community on their silence and betrayal.

Gays Against Shariah and Gay Conservative Forum “The Outright” will be protesting in Manchester on June 10, 2017. They will be meeting at Manchester Piccadilly railway station between 11:00 am and 1:45 pm for a march starting at 2:00 pm. Visit their event page for all the finalized details of the rally. (Visit Tommy on Twitter at @EnglishTommy1).

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EDITORS NOTE: Please support The Glazov Gang because they are a fan-generated show and need your help to keep going. Make a contribution or set up a monthly pledge by clicking here.

Man who popularized term ‘Islamophobia’ says it was a mistake, Muslims won’t assimilate

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It was Trevor Phillips who first gave the spurious propaganda term “Islamophobia” an intellectual veneer. Now he is admitting he was wrong all along, and has enabled and abetted the creation of Sharia enclaves in Britain and all over Europe. So what is he going to do about it now? Can the damage done to Britain be repaired? Does Phillips or anyone else have the will to try to repair it.

“UK Equalities Chief Who Popularised The Term ‘Islamophobia’ Admits: ‘I Thought Muslims Would Blend into Britain… I Should Have Known Better,’” by Raheem Kassam, Breitbart, April 10, 2016:

The former head of Britain’s Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), Trevor Phillips, has admitted he “got almost everything wrong” on Muslim immigration in a damning new report on integration, segregation, and how the followers of Islam are creating “nations within nations” in the West.

Phillips, a former elected member of the Labour Party who served as the Chairman of the EHRC from 2003-2012 will present “What British Muslims Really Think” on Channel 4 on Wednesday. An ICM poll released to the Times ahead of the broadcast reveals:

  • One in five Muslims in Britain never enter a non-Muslim house;
  • 39 per cent of Muslims, male and female, say a woman should always obey her husband;
  • 31 per cent of British Muslims support the right of a man to have more than one wife;
  • 52 per cent of Muslims did not believe that homosexuality should be legal;
  • 23 per cent of Muslims support the introduction of Sharia law rather than the laws laid down by parliament.

Writing in the Times on the issue, Phillips admits: “Liberal opinion in Britain has, for more than two decades, maintained that most Muslims are just like everyone else… Britain desperately wants to think of its Muslims as versions of the Great British Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain, or the cheeky-chappie athlete Mo Farah. But thanks to the most detailed and comprehensive survey of British Muslim opinion yet conducted, we now know that just isn’t how it is.”

Phillips commissioned “the Runnymede report” into Britain and Islamophobia in 1997 which, according to both Phillips himself and academics across the country, popularised the phrase which has now become synonymous with any criticism – legitimate or not – of Islam or Muslims.

Durham University’s Anthropology Journal noted in 2007: “It has been a decade since the Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia was established, a Commission that through its 1997 report, “Islamophobia: a challenge for us all” (“the Runnymede report”) not only raised an awareness of the growing reality of anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic hostility in Britain, but also marked the onset of what might be described as ‘the first decade of Islamophobia’. In doing so, the Runnymede report propelled the word ‘Islamophobia’ into the everyday common parlance and discourses of both the public and political spaces.”

Phillips says his new data shows “a chasm” opening between Muslims and non-Muslims on fundamental issues such as marriage, relations between men and women, schooling, freedom of expression and even the validity of violence in defence of religion. He notes – echoing an article on Breitbart London just two weeks ago which reveals a growing disparity between older and younger Muslims in Britain – that “the gaps between Muslim and non-Muslim youngsters are nearly as large as those between their elders”.

And while he is cautious to note that many Muslims in Britain are grateful to be here, and do identify with role models such as Hussain and Farah, there is a widening gap in society with many Muslims segregating themselves.

“It’s not as though we couldn’t have seen this coming. But we’ve repeatedly failed to spot the warning signs,” he admits.

“Twenty years ago… I published the report titled Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All, we thought that the real risk of the arrival of new communities was discrimination against Muslims. Our 1996 survey of recent incidents showed that there was plenty of it around. But we got almost everything else wrong.”

His comments will come as a blow to those who continue to attack elements in British society who are concerned about Muslim immigration and integration, and in fact may even go some way to shoring up comments made by U.S. Presidential candidates Donald Trump and

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) seeking to slow down or pause the rate of Muslim immigration into the West.“We estimated that the Muslim population of the UK would be approaching 2 [million] by 2020. We underestimated by nearly a million. We predicted that the most lethal threat to Muslims would come from racial attacks and social exclusion. We completely failed to foresee the urban conflicts of 2001 that ravaged our northern cities. And of course we didn’t dream of 9/11 and the atrocities in Madrid, Paris, Istanbul, Brussels and London.”“For a long time, I too thought that Europe’s Muslims would become like previous waves of migrants, gradually abandoning their ancestral ways, wearing their religious and cultural baggage lightly, and gradually blending into Britain’s diverse identity landscape. I should have known better.”

And Mr. Phillips even acknowledges that the mass sexual grooming and rape scandals that are plaguing heavily Muslim populated towns across Britain are because of Muslim – not ‘Asian’ – men. He writes: “The contempt for white girls among some Muslim men has been highlighted by the recent scandals in Rotherham, Oxford, Rochdale and other towns. But this merely reflects a deeply ingrained sexism that runs through Britain’s Muslim communities” – in a nod to those who have long protested this to be the case in the face of political, media, and even police cover ups.

Even left wing columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown told him: “[W]e [liberal Muslims] are a dying breed — in 10 years there will be very few of us left unless something really important is done.”

Phillips comments: “Some of my journalist friends imagine that, with time, the Muslims will grow out of it. They won’t.”

And indeed he lays the blame at the feet of the liberal, metropolitan elite, media classes: “Oddly, the biggest obstacles we now face in addressing the growth of this nation-within-a-nation are not created by British Muslims themselves. Many of our (distinctly un-diverse) elite political and media classes simply refuse to acknowledge the truth. Any undesirable behaviours are attributed to poverty and alienation. Backing for violent extremism must be the fault of the Americans. Oppression of women is a cultural trait that will fade with time, nothing to do with the true face of Islam.”

“Even when confronted with the growing pile of evidence to the contrary, and the angst of the liberal minority of British Muslims, clever, important people still cling to the patronising certainty that British Muslims will, over time, come to see that “our” ways are better.”

In terms of solutions, Mr. Phillips opines on “halting the growth of sharia courts and placing them under regulation” ensuring that school governance never falls into the hands of a single-minority group, “ensuring mosques that receive a steady flow of funds from foreign governments such as Saudi Arabia, however disguised, are forced to reduce their dependency on Wahhabi patronage” and an end to the “silence-for-votes understanding between local politicians and Muslim leaders — the sort of Pontius Pilate deal that had such catastrophic outcomes in Rotherham and Rochdale”.

Mr. Phillips’s comments echo those of the Czech president, and research from across Europe that revealed attitudes amongst Muslims on the continent have hardened. The younger the Muslim, the more likely they are to hold hard-line views, one recent study found.

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Muslim who wished Christians Happy Easter slaughtered by fellow Muslim

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Here is the straight truth from IslamQA.com:

Can a Muslim celebrate a non-Muslim holiday like Thanksgiving?
Published Date: 1998-03-29

Praise be to Allaah.

Greeting the kuffaar on Christmas and other religious holidays of theirs is haraam, by consensus, as Ibn al-Qayyim, may Allaah have mercy on him, said in Ahkaam Ahl al-Dhimmah:

“Congratulating the kuffaar on the rituals that belong only to them is haraam by consensus, as is congratulating them on their festivals and fasts by saying ‘A happy festival to you’ or ‘May you enjoy your festival,’ and so on. If the one who says this has been saved from kufr, it is still forbidden. It is like congratulating someone for prostrating to the cross, or even worse than that. It is as great a sin as congratulating someone for drinking wine, or murdering someone, or having illicit sexual relations, and so on. Many of those who have no respect for their religion fall into this error; they do not realize the offensiveness of their actions. Whoever congratulates a person for his disobedience or bid’ah or kufr exposes himself to the wrath and anger of Allaah.”

Congratulating the kuffaar on their religious festivals is haraam to the extent described by Ibn al-Qayyim because it implies that one accepts or approves of their rituals of kufr, even if one would not accept those things for oneself. But the Muslim should not aceept the rituals of kufr or congratulate anyone else for them, because Allaah does not accept any of that at all, as He says (interpretation of the meaning):

“If you disbelieve, then verily, Allaah is not in need of you, He likes not disbelief for His slaves. And if you are grateful (by being believers), He is pleased therewith for you. . .”
[al-Zumar 39:7]

“. . . This day, I have perfected your religion for you, completed My favour upon you, and have chosen for you Islaam as your religion . . .”
[al-Maa’idah 5:3]

So congratulating them is forbidden, whether they are one’s colleagues at work or otherwise.

If they greet us on the occasion of their festivals, we should not respond, because these are not our festivals, and because they are not festivals which are acceptable to Allaah. These festivals are innovations in their religions, and even those which may have been prescribed formerly have been abrogated by the religion of Islaam, with which Allaah sent Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) to the whole of mankind. Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

“Whoever seeks a religion other than Islaam, it will never be accepted of him, and in the Hereafter he will be one of the losers.” [Aal ‘Imraan 3:85]…

Asad Shah was murdered after he wished Christians a “Good Friday and very happy Easter, especially to my beloved Christian nation.”

Asad Shah

“Scotland police probe killing of Muslim shopkeeper who posted Facebook Easter message to Christians,” FoxNews.com, March 26, 2016:

A popular shopkeeper who wished Christians a happy Easter on Facebook was stabbed to death in what police in Scotland say was a “religiously prejudiced” attack carried out by a fellow Muslim, it was reported Saturday.

A vigil was held Friday night in Glasgow’s Shawlands neighborhood in memory of Asad Shah who was killed the day before– a few hours after he apparently posted messages on Facebook that said “Good Friday and very happy Easter, especially to my beloved Christian nation.”

“Let’s follow the real footstep of beloved holy Jesus Christ and get the real success in both worlds,” one of the messages said.

Police said a 32-year-old man has been arrested in connection with Shah’s death. Police said the suspect is Muslim. He was not been identified.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon joined the vigil in support of Shah and his family.

“Moved to be one of hundreds tonight as Shawlands united in grief for Asad Shah and support for his family,” Sturgeon tweeted afterward, the BBC reported Saturday.

According to the BBC, those attending the memorial were encouraged to bring a daffodil. Those at the gathering laid flowers and lit candles.

“It was very respectful,” vigil organizer Eildon Dyer told the BBC. “There were a lot of people clearly very upset. There were a lot of tears and lots and lots of flowers.”

Dyer added: “Everybody has said he was the nicest man. He was clearly much-loved. Everybody had nice stories to tell about him and warm stories. It’s just very, very sad.”…

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Archbishop of Canterbury: People are afraid, very afraid of mass Muslim migration

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Well, this is refreshing! A major Christian leader somewhere in the world has the nerve to say it while admonishing all of those who link that fear to racism.

Waiting in Calais for passage to the UK

Illegal migrants waiting in Calais for passage to the United Kingdom.

And, he dares to say this:

‘You can’t say, “God says you must vote this way or that way”.’

So take a lesson US Catholic Bishops, Lutherans, Evangelicals, and the rest of you supposed Christians!

From the Daily Mail:

Britain has a ‘genuine and justified’ fear of mass immigration, the Archbishop of Canterbury declared last night.

The country’s most senior churchman said it was ‘absolutely outrageous’ to dismiss the public’s legitimate concerns as racist.

Archbishop Justin Welby warned: ‘There is a genuine fear. And it is really important that that fear is listened to and addressed.

There have to be resources put in place that address those fears.’

He added: ‘What happens about housing? What happens about jobs? What happens about access to health services?’

archbishop of Canterbury

Justin Welby, The Archbishop of Canterbury.

Campaign groups last night welcomed his powerful intervention as a ‘marvellous breath of fresh air’. It comes after years in which the liberal Left has attacked those expressing concern about the unprecedented levels of immigration into Britain as bigots.

Archbishop Welby also revealed that the Church would not be taking a position in the EU referendum debate.

He was highly critical of Europe’s response to the refugee crisis, but added: ‘You can’t say, “God says you must vote this way or that way”.’

Continue reading here.

Unfortunately, Archbishop Welby still thinks the UK should take in more refugees, but I expect his position will change on that too once they come in larger numbers from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

For our complete ‘Invasion of Europe’ archive, click here.

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EDITORS NOTE: The featured image of Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is courtesy of the New York Times.

New reforms give Muslim migrants with more than one wife extra benefits

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Paying for something will only encourage more of it, and there will even be conversions to Islam by people who want to take advantage of this. Britain’s Islamization is proceeding nicely, and anyone who raises a dissenting voice is ruthlessly silenced, so all is well and all manner of thing shall be well.

“Wives With Benefits: Immigrants With More Than One Spouse Win EXTRA Payments Under New Reforms,” by Simon Kent, Breitbart, January 24, 2016:

Immigrants with many wives stand to make substantial financial gains under looming changes to Britain’s welfare system.

Polygamous marriages, which form a common thread in Islam, are recognised in Britain but only if they take place in countries where they are legal. Now a House of Commons library paper, published earlier this month, has highlighted a loophole that will allow additional wives coming to the UK to claim a full single person’s allowance while the husband and his first wife still receive their respective benefits.

At present additional wives receive reduced individual income support, meaning the husband and his first wife receive up to £114.85. Subsequent spouses living under the same roof receive a reduced allowance of about £40 each.

The foreshadowed changes mean some polygamous households may receive more under universal credit than under the present benefit and tax credit system. The paper said:

“The Government decided that the universal credit rules will not recognise additional partners in polygamous relationships,” the paper states.

“This could potentially result in some polygamous households receiving more under universal credit than under the current benefit and tax credit system.

“Treating second and subsequent partners in polygamous relationships as separate claimants could in some situations mean polygamous households receive more under universal credit than they do under the current rules for means-tested benefits and tax credits.

“This is because the amounts which may be paid in respect of additional spouses are lower than those which generally apply to single claimants.”

The news comes as universal credit (UC), introduced in April 2014, is applied to more Jobcentre areas, including Kent and Leicestershire, from tomorrow. More, including Cambridge and Hull, are set to introduce it before April this year.

UC is to replace all means-tested benefits and tax credits for families of working age and is gradually being introduced to new claimant groups and areas including those in polygamous unions.

This is not the first time that Islamic marriage traditions have been highlighted in the UK.

As Breitbart London reported, last year Britain’s first female sharia law judge stated that the “government cannot ask Muslims not to have more than one wife”.

That revelation came on the back of a report by the Times newspaper which claimed that Britain is experiencing a “surge” in Sharia marriages, as young British Muslims adopt a more hardline religious stance than their parents.

According to The Times:

“As many as 100,000 couples are living in such [sharia] marriages, which are not valid under UK law, experts said. Ministers have raised fears that women can be left without the right to a fair share of assets if the relationship ends, while others are forced to return to abusive “husbands”.

“A leading Islamic family lawyer warned that the increase in Sharia ceremonies among the 2.7 million-strong Muslim population in Britain was also behind a growth in ‘secret polygamy’.

“Probably a quarter of all couples I see involve polygamy issues,” Aina Khan told The Times. “There has been a huge rise in recent years because people can have a secret nikah [Islamic marriage] and no one will know about it.”

A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions told the Daily Express: “The previous system accommodated polygamous marriages but this Government has done away with it. Under new rules any additional partners who are unemployed have to claim benefits independently and will need to sign a claimant commitment, and look for work like anyone else. They will also not get benefits for housing costs if they are living together.”

It has been claimed that Muslim men are having up to 20 children each because of polygamy and the rise of “religiously-sanctioned gender discrimination” under Sharia Law.

Baroness Cox, a cross-bench peer, has highlighted a series of “shocking” examples of the impact of Sharia law on Muslim women in Britain as she called for them to be given greater protection.

Bigamy in the UK is a crime under Section 57 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 however in 2008, the Blair government gave the go-ahead for husbands with multiple wives to claim extra welfare benefits, so long as the weddings took place in countries where the arrangement is legal (as is permitted under Islamic law).

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British Parliament Moves Against the Real Threat: Donald Trump

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In FrontPage today I discuss how the British Parliament went into full Sharia mode as it debated banning the Presidential candidate for his unwelcome opinions.

Say goodnight, Winston. Sayonara, Shakespeare. It’s light’s out in the United Kingdom. In Britain, it’s all over but the Sharia. This was made abundantly clear on Monday, when the British Parliament held a three-hour debate on whether or not to ban Donald Trump from the country.

It used to be that only serious criminals, severe threats to the public order, were ever banned from countries. Ostensibly, that is still the case, but the idea of who and what constitutes a threat to the public order has changed. Multitudes in Britain want to keep Trump out of their green and pleasant land not because he absconded with the church funds, or plotted bomb attacks in the London Tube, but because he said that in light of the jihad terror threat and the impossibility of distinguishing Islamic jihadists from peaceful Muslims, there should be a temporary moratorium on Muslim immigration into the U.S.

For that, the learned Parliamentarians debated banning Trump from Britain, and in the process, heaped abuse upon him, calling him a “fool,” a “buffoon” and a “wazzock,” which is apparently a word more properly applied to those who voted for David Cameron. One thing that never became clear during the entire three hours of heated discussion, however, was what terrible results the foes of Trump thought might ensue from his entry into the Sceptered Isle. Did they think that if he repeated his call for a moratorium on Muslim immigration on British soil, that Muslims, those notorious shrinking violets, would retreat to psychologists’ couches in such droves that the British mental health system would be overwhelmed?

More likely, the unspoken fear was that if Trump entered Britain, Muslims would riot. And so those British politicians who have insisted that Islam is a Religion of Peace moved to ban him, knowing but afraid to admit that the adherents of the most famous peaceful religion in the world could quite easily become violent if crossed. To avoid crossing them was their highest of priorities – and as Sharia forbids criticism of Islam and offense to Muslims, they eagerly became Sharia-compliant, eagerly anticipating the electoral rewards that were certain to follow in the wake of their submission.

The whole thing looks now as if it was just a chance for Trump’s foes to do a bit of grandstanding and show their Muslim masters how solidly they were in their corner, but seriously, why not ban Trump? After all, I myself was banned from entering Britain for saying that Islam “is a religion and is a belief system that mandates warfare against unbelievers for the purpose for establishing a societal model that is absolutely incompatible with Western society.”

The anti-Trump movement in the UK implied that Trump might escape due punishment for his heinous crimes because he is rich: “If the United Kingdom is to continue applying the ‘unacceptable behaviour’ criteria to those who wish to enter its borders, it must be fairly applied to the rich as well as poor, and the weak as well as powerful.” But that’s a lot of hooey. The “unacceptable behavior” criteria is already applied unfairly. Just days before Pamela Geller and I were banned, the British government admitted Saudi Sheikh Mohammed al-Arefe. Al-Arefe has said:

“Devotion to jihad for the sake of Allah, and the desire to shed blood, to smash skulls, and to sever limbs for the sake of Allah and in defense of His religion, is, undoubtedly, an honor for the believer. Allah said that if a man fights the infidels, the infidels will be unable to prepare to fight.”

That was acceptable in Britain. My work, which has consistently denounced violence and been in defense of the equality of rights of all before the law, was not. That’s a fair application of the “unacceptable behaviors” criteria?

If I can get banned for making a manifestly true observation about Islam, then Trump can certainly be banned for calling for a temporary moratorium on Muslim immigration in view of jihad terror. The UK continues to demonize and stigmatize resistance to jihad terror, and will probably continue to do so until it is far too late: the last free Briton will be congratulating himself that he was not “Islamophobic” as the knife slices through his neck.

As Britain continues to make itself an international laughingstock, transgressing its core principles by banning people for holding unpopular opinions, there is one thing that can be said for that once-great nation: as Sharia states go, it is a hell of a lot funnier than Saudi Arabia or Iran.

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Geert Wilders: ‘Welcome, Donald Trump’ to the land of thoughtcrimes

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Britain: the cradle of freedom, now the land of thoughtcrime.

“Exclusive–Geert Wilders: Delusional Britain Would Rather Ban Donald Trump Than Confront Unpleasant Facts,” by Geert Wilders, Breitbart, January 19, 2016:

Deja-vu. It is not an English word, but French. However, the word immediately springs to mind when hearing about yet another Western politician or Islam critic, whom some British politicians want to ban from entering their country. Welcome, Donald Trump, in the company of Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer and myself.

Both Pamela, Robert and myself have been banned from entering the United Kingdom. In my case, it happened on February 12, 2009. Two highly respected members of the British House of Lords, Lady Caroline Cox and Lord Malcolm Pearson, had invited me to show my 2008 documentary Fitna to members of the House in a conference room of the parliament building in Westminster. Fitna is a movie, juxtaposing Koranic versed calling for violence with footage of terrorist attacks and other violent deeds these verses inspired.

Fitna, as well as my view that Islam, rather than a religion, is primarily a totalitarian political ideology aiming for world domination, has resulted in several death threats against my person. I am on the death list of Al-Qaeda, ISIS and the Pakistani Taliban. Since 2004, I have been living under round-the-clock police protection, but I have a mission: Speak the truth about Islam.

However, a Pakistani-born Islamic member of the House of Lords, one Nazir Ahmed, demanded that the then British Labour government ban me from entering the UK. He threatened that he would personally mobilize 10,000 Muslims to prevent me from entering the Upper House. The government complied and had me banned. Though a member of the Dutch parliament, invited by British colleagues, I was locked up in a detention room upon arrival at Heathrow Airport. Three hours later, I was put on the next flight to Amsterdam.

The British authorities said that my “presence in the UK would pose a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat to one of the fundamental interests of society.” My statements as expressed in Fitna and elsewhere were said to “threaten community harmony and therefore public security in the UK.” Lord Ahmed boasted of his victory in the Pakistani media. He termed the decision “a victory for the Muslim community.”

However, I challenged the ban before the British Asylum and Immigration Tribunal. On October 12, 2009, this tribunal overturned the ban. In March 2010, I returned to London and showed my movie to my colleagues in Westminster. There were no incidents and no disturbances of Britain’s “fundamental interests,” “community harmony,” or “public security.” The bans served but one goal: It was an attempt to shut me up for speaking the truth about Islam.

Yesterday, Pamela Geller wrote on this website that in June 2013, she and Robert Spencer, too, were banned from the UK because their presence was “not conductive to the public good” and a “threat to security of our society.” It sounded eerily familiar, as did the arguments of those who want Donald Trump to be banned from Britain for advocating a temporary moratorium on Muslim immigration into the US. Fortunately, they did not succeed.

When the great Ronald Reagan visited the British Parliament in 1982, he told the British parliamentarians that “if history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly.” This is an advice that politicians everywhere should take at heart.

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UK Parliament will debate barring Trump from country

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Why not ban Trump? After all, I was banned from entering Britain for saying that Islam “is a religion and is a belief system that mandates warfare against unbelievers for the purpose for establishing a societal model that is absolutely incompatible with Western society.”

If I can get banned for that manifestly true observation, then Trump can certainly be banned for calling for a temporary moratorium on Muslim immigration in view of jihad terror. One thing British authorities are sure of: it is wrong, wrong, wrong to want to take any action against jihad terror.

“If the United Kingdom is to continue applying the ‘unacceptable behaviour’ criteria to those who wish to enter its borders, it must be fairly applied to the rich as well as poor, and the weak as well as powerful.” That’s a lot of hooey. The “unacceptable behavior” criteria is already applied unfairly. Just days before Pamela Geller and I were banned, the British government admitted Saudi Sheikh Mohammed al-Arefe. Al-Arefe has said:

“Devotion to jihad for the sake of Allah, and the desire to shed blood, to smash skulls, and to sever limbs for the sake of Allah and in defense of His religion, is, undoubtedly, an honor for the believer. Allah said that if a man fights the infidels, the infidels will be unable to prepare to fight.”

That was acceptable in Britain. My work, which has consistently denounced violence and been in defense of the equality of rights of all before the law, was not. That’s a fair application of the “unacceptable behaviors” criteria?

“UK Parliament Will Debate Barring Trump from Country,” by Carrie Dann, NBC News, January 5, 2016

The British parliament will formally debate a petition later this month from backers wishing to prevent Donald Trump from entering the United Kingdom.

The debate is set for January 18, according to a government announcement Tuesday. The petition, launched after Trump announced his proposal to bar Muslims from entering the United States, has garnered over 568,000 signatures to date.

Online petitions like the one targeting Trump are automatically considered for debate by a Petitions Committee if they garner more than 100,000 signatures.

The petition reads: “The signatories believe Donald J Trump should be banned from UK entry. The UK has banned entry to many individuals for hate speech. The same principles should apply to everyone who wishes to enter the UK. If the United Kingdom is to continue applying the ‘unacceptable behaviour’ criteria to those who wish to enter its borders, it must be fairly applied to the rich as well as poor, and the weak as well as powerful.”…

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Revealed: Russia’s Great Game in the Middle East

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It was a bizarre turn of events at the opening of the UN General Assembly in New York on the 70th Anniversary of the world body.  President Obama gave a speech lambasting Putin’s Russia over its seizure of Crimea and  invasion of eastern Ukraine violating the country’s sovereignty. However, he paid court to Russia and China for supporting the  Iran nuclear pact unanimous approved  by the UN Security Council poised to release tens of billions in sequestered funds as of December 15, 2015. He  questioned Russia’s sudden military presence in western Syria building a military complex to bolster the Assad regime.  A regime that rained barrel bombs causing the deaths of 250,000. A regime ethnically cleansing the country’s Sunni population sending millions to displaced persons camps in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon and hundreds of thousands in flight to the EU.  The President got warm applause over his rapprochement with Cuba.

Putin, when he had his turn at the rostrum accused the U.S., without naming it, of causing the rise of the Islamic State through its invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan,  ultimately creating a Sunni supremacist Caliphate.  Following Putin Iranian President Rouhani  had his turn at the rostrum in the Assembly hall. He made the astounding proposal that an international alliance including Russia, Iran, Syria and Iraq  combat terrorism in the Middle East.  A proposal that Rouhani  said should be confirmed in another Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action akin to the Iran nuclear pact.  He noted the nuclear pact  was  concluded  “without the impediment of the Zionist enterprise”, meaning Israel.  Witness  the cheek of President Rouhani   of Iran  suggesting  a new Shia alliance in the Middle East, plus Russia welcoming  the US to join in fighting Sunni Supremacist  Islamic State.

What was on display at the UN was the supplanting  of the U.S. in the new great game of the Middle East by  Russia.  It was enough to make one’s head spin with these sudden turns  of events. It made the U.S., look like a “JV team “struggling  to keep up.

The usually astute Shoshana Bryen, senior director of the Washington, DC-based  Jewish Policy Center  was asked  by this writer during the September 27, 2015 Lisa Benson Show why  these developments occurred so suddenly.  She said that  Putin’s Russia like all great powers do when they are confronted by a vacuum, especially one that threatens its national  interests.  Thousands of Jihadists have left Chechnya, Dagestan, and Tartarstan in Russia attracted by the Salafist  Islamic doctrine of the Islamic State as a declared Caliphate.  Thus  Putin’s objective is to “bottle” up these Sunni Jihadists in Syria and Iraq.  Putin admitted as much in a CBS 60 Minutes interview with Charlie Rose  Sunday evening when he said:

More than 2,000 fighters from Russia and ex-Soviet republics are in the territory of Syria. There is a threat of their return to us. So instead of waiting for their return, we are better off helping Assad fight them on Syrian territory.

Watch the CBS 60 Minutes Charlie Rose interview with Russian President Putin:

When Lisa Benson asked Bryen about  where Iran’s proxy Hezbollah stood in these developments, she  replied  Hezbollah “had not been an efficient fighting force in Syria.  Further, she commented that Russian presence in Syria is meant to actually limit Hezbollah’s  involvement, perhaps  to a defensive role “in the Alawite enclave.”  Moreover, she noted  that Putin is not interested  in a war with Israel ,suggesting that the meeting with Netanyahu  in Moscow was  to coordinate means to avoid conflict. However, Bryen  noted  Putin has another interest in the region, “control over the flow of gas to Europe” being developing offshore in Israeli, Egyptian,  and Lebanese fields.  Bryen thinks there is ‘no evidence’ of Russian presence on the Syrian frontier on Israel’s Golan Heights.  Notwithstanding a spate of rocket and mortar attacks on the Golan responded to by the IDF this past weekend that Israeli Minister of Defense Ya’alon thinks were ordered by Iran.  We shall soon see whether Putin’s gamble pays off.  Or results in another graveyard  like Afghanistan  rout of the Soviet 40th Army in 1989.

We could see this  thunder clap about to occur in the run up to the UN General Assembly session.  We had the Russian announcement of  military aid and mission to be established in the Alawite bastion of Latakia province.  Included were  the building of expanded landing fields to accommodate Ilushin cargo aircraft  and squadrons of  Mig and Sukhoi fighters, transiting from Russia to Syria  via Iran and Iraqi airspace. Then there was the announcement of Black Sea fleet maneuvers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.  In late July, following the UN endorsement of the Iran deal, Revolutionary Guards Quds Force Commander  Qasem Soliemani in Moscow  met with Putin and  Russian Defense Minister Shogui. Those discussions were  ostensibly to expedite deliveries of Russian advanced air defense systems, but  in reality to plan for Russian direct involvement with Iranian forces . In May , we witnessed an alleged US ally, Iraqi Premier Haidar al-Abadi traveling to Moscow  to obtain additional fighter  deliveries to aid in the battle against the Islamic State. Meanwhile, President Obama had committed 3, 500 American military trainers to assist  the  Iraqi National Security forces  to recover Anbar province and  Mosul. Abadi, our alleged ally in the coalition against ISIS,   brought in Russian military advisors to link  up with   Soliemani  directing  Iraqi Shia militia forces.

The unkindest  cut of all was the announcement  on the eve of the UN General Assembly of a joint intelligence and security operations center in Baghdad sharing  information among Russia, Iran, Syria and Iraq.

There was  also evidence that the U.S. led coalition strategy in Syria and Iraq “defeating and degrading” ISIS had collapsed.  That was reflected  in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee by CENTCOM commander, Gen. Lloyd Austin who told Senators that  the $500 million program to train Syrian opposition fighters had failed ignominiously. We had spent $40 million training and equipping 60 candidates, who signed waivers that they were to fight ISIS, not Assad. 40 of those surrendered their weapons and joined Al Qaeda affiliate jabhat al Nusra.    If that wasn’t  enough, we had the roiling scandal of a revolt by CENTCOM  intelligence analysts who requested a Pentagon Inspector General  investigation into why assessments were being prettied up by superiors  to present a misinformed picture to the President and National Security Staff that we were succeeding in the air campaign without US boots on the ground.  That was further depicted in testimony by ex-CIA director, retired Army General Petreaus , who  testified  before the same Senate Armed Services Committee  recommending establishing   no fly zones, sanctuary havens in country and deploying  Special Forces teams.  Add to that the failure of the Obama White House to honor its commitment to supply  Syrian Kurdish YPG  and Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces with updated weapons, ammunition and equipment.  The Kurds are  being attacked by Turkish air force fighters.  To cap things off, retired Marine Gen. John Allen, coordinator of the  Coalition effort,  resigned after a year of service.  As former Defense Intelligence Agency  head, retired Army General Michael Flynn observed, this is what you get when you “politicize intelligence”. The President suggested in his UN address  that the Islamic State   “violent extremism , distorts ”the true meaning of the Islamic faith.”

Russian may have “frozen” the Syrian conflict in a stalemate.  The U.S. finds itself suddenly on the sidelines, largely, by its own “red lines”. Now with Russia’s direct involvement in Syria and Iraq, we will soon find out if ISIS is vanquished or remains a growing global threat. Such are the rules of The Great Game that in the 19th Century pitted imperial Czarist Russia against the British Empire.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

A Flawed Deal: How the Iran Deal Threatens Britain’s Security

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This latest policy paper by Centre for the New Middle East at the Henry Jackson Society, A Flawed Deal: An Assessment Of The Iranian Nuclear Agreement, undertakes one of the most comprehensive and exhaustive assessments of the Iran agreement to date. The centre’s study reveals the key nuclear and non-nuclear flaws of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Arguing that concessions to Iran have long-lasting and damaging security ramifications, the paper concludes that JCPOA will ultimately fail in its aim of ensuring Iran does not become a nuclear breakout power.

The agreement signed by Iran and the P5+1 powers in July 2015 was described by President Barack Obama as an “historic deal” that prevents Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Despite many inadequate aspects of the deal that have been exposed during its scrutiny in Congress, the White House has continued to defend the agreement. The British government has fully supported the Obama administration in this position and unlike in the U.S., there has been no serious debate of the JCPOA by parliamentarians in the UK.

While the deal is as yet unimplemented and the Iranian regime remains deeply hostile to the West and British national interests, the British government has already rushed to renew diplomatic relations with Iran, reopening Britain’s embassy in Tehran, and sponsoring business ties in preparation for the lifting of sanctions. Nevertheless, the regime in Iran remains unreformed and we are yet to see practical progress on curtailing Iran’s extensive nuclear infrastructure.

The briefing paper identifies four key flaws with JCPOA:

  • Provisions for inspections of nuclear sites restrict immediate access to Iran’s military facilities by international weapons inspectors.
  • Should the terms of JCPOA be violated by Iran, the re-implementation of sanctions would not be immediate but rather a protracted diplomatic process.
  • The temporary nature of JCPOA does little to prevent Iran from rebooting its quest for nuclear capabilities once the deal expires in ten years.
  • The lifting of the international arms embargo against Iran will embolden the regime, advancing Tehran’s ability to arm terror proxies and allies in the region such as Assad.

Tom Wilson, Resident Associate Fellow at HJS and author of the briefing paper, commented:

“The Iran agreement clearly fails to meet the international community’s primary objective of guaranteeing that Iran won’t be able move toward producing nuclear weapons. Ultimately, this agreement legitimises Iran’s formerly illegal nuclear programme, leaving Iran as a threshold nuclear power. It’s incredibly worrying that this deal hasn’t been properly scrutinized here in Britain.

The British government appears to have gone along with Obama’s plan unquestioningly and now we are to reopen our embassy in Tehran at a time when the regime remains deeply hostile to British interests and has done nothing to earn our trust.”

A Flawed Deal: An Assessment Of The Iranian Nuclear Agreement is available to download here