{Originally posted to the IPT website}
The former head of Britain’s Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), Trevor Phillips, argued that Muslims are establishing “nations within nations” in the West and admitted that he “got almost everything wrong” about immigration, in a column for the Sunday Times.
Phillips analyzed the findings of the most comprehensive study on Muslim attitudes in the United Kingdom (U.K.), which will serve as the foundation for a documentary commissioned by Britain’s Channel 4 entitled “What British Muslims Really Think.”
Many Muslims maintain significantly different values from the rest of society and prefer to live in separation, Phillips claimed.
The Channel 4 program is based off an ICM poll. It finds that more than 20 percent of British Muslims believe the country should be governed by sharia law, while close to 40 percent of Muslims – both male and female – believe a woman should always be obedient to her husband. About a third of Muslims respondents say it is okay for a man to have more than one wife, while more than half want homosexuality outlawed.
Moreover, two-thirds of British Muslims surveyed would not inform the police if they believed that someone they know became involved with terrorists. The findings also show that more than 100,000 Muslims in Britain sympathize with terrorists and suicide bombers.
The poll also revealed that British Muslims were more likely to have anti-Semitic beliefs than other British citizens. Over a third of Muslims in Britain believed that “Jews have too much power in the U.K.” and dominated the media and financial institutions. More than 25 percent questioned believe Jews are responsible for most of the world’s ongoing wars and 27 percent reported that people “hate” Jews because of their behavior.In 1997, Phillips commissioned a report about Muslims in Britain which introduced and popularized the ‘Islamophobia’ label that is now synonymous with any criticism of Islam or Muslims. He now admits that report failed to predict many individuals within Muslim communities hold radical views and do not seek to integrate into British society.
“It’s not as though we couldn’t have seen this coming. But we’ve repeatedly failed to spot the warning signs,” Phillips wrote in the Times.
In a Daily Mail article, Phillips describes a “life-and-death struggle for the soul of British Islam,” arguing that extremists have infiltrated in some Muslim communities and drowned out moderate Muslim voices.
“Indeed, a significant minority of Britain’s three million Muslims consider us a nation of such low morals that they would rather live more separately from their non-Muslim countrymen, preferably under sharia law,” Phillips says.
Phillips also warned of Islamist hardliners taking over UK schools and imposing a radical agenda, as evidenced by the ‘Trojan Horse’ case in Birmingham. These developments led Phillips to call for more robust measures and strict monitoring to mitigate the emergence of “ghetto villages,” or ethno-religious enclaves that remain separate from the remainder of society.
Radical sentiments among Britain’s Muslim community reflect research from across Europe that suggests Muslim attitudes are becoming more extreme, particularly among younger generations.