EVERYTHING SEEMINGLY IS SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL — at least in the UK:
One reason I started writing this newsletter is so we could share information and data with people they might have missed but really need to know. Here are two things that caught me eye over the last 48 hours, which I think you really need to know:
Firstly, in the UK, the number of illegal migrants and small boats entering the country is now rapidly spiralling, fuelling the immigration crisis and a broader collapse of public trust in the established parties and, for that matter, the entire system.
On Saturday alone, some 1,195 illegal migrants entered the UK on 19 small boats. This is the largest number for a single day this year, the fourth largest on record since the border crisis began, and means that overall number this year, nearly 15,000 illegal migrants, is some 42 per cent higher than the same point last year.
While immigration is already the number one issue in British politics, and is the main reason why millions of voters are abandoning the established parties for Reform, the numbers now look set to spiral even higher, with The Times this weekend forecasting that around 50,000 migrants will arrive this year, a new annual record.
None of this will surprise longer-term readers, of course. Even before Labour came to power, in May 2024, we explained why Labour’s plan for “smashing the gangs” would not work and the crisis would get worse. And this is now happening.
Also happening in the UK: England now has a blasphemy law.
Officially, blasphemy was abolished by New Labour in the 2008 Criminal Justice Act. But today, with the conviction of Hamit Coskun, blasphemy laws now exist in England.
This law has been created by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and District Judge John McGarva. Between them they have prosecuted and found a man guilty of a ‘religiously aggravated public order offence’ because he burned a Quran outside the Turkish consulate. The CPS mounted a prosecution conflating the religious institution of Islam, with Muslims as people, and a British judge has accepted this. Islamic blasphemy codes are now being enforced by arms of the British state, via what the National Secular Society describes as ‘a troubling repurposing of public order laws as a proxy for blasphemy laws’.
Hamit Coskun burned a Quran outside the Turkish consulate in February, before being attacked by a man named Moussa Kadri who has since pleaded guilty to the assault. Mr Coskun was initially charged under the Crime and Disorder Act with ‘intent to cause against the religious institution of Islam harassment, alarm or distress’. This means that the Crown Prosecution Service were treating Islam itself as a person, and a victim of Hamit’s Quran burning. Under English law this is nonsensical, as only people can be harmed in this fashion, so this charge, if it had been successful, would have established a special, protected status for Islam. Weeks ago I made a Freedom of Information request of the CPS, asking in how many instances of ‘the religious institution of Islam’ appeared in recent indictments. Just this morning they responded, saying that it would take too long for them to review all the charges they had made, and that they would not comply with the FOI request.
In other words: Welcome to the Islamic theocracy of Great Britain. “t won’t have escaped your attention that our new backdoor blasphemy laws only seem to cover one religion in particular. Those who seek to ringfence Islam – and Islam alone – from ridicule or criticism no doubt believe they are protecting an embattled little guy. But Coskun’s case rather complicates that narrative.”
(Classical reference in headline.)