“Islamophobia”

Our politicians cannot bring themselves to say that this violent sex offender should never have been granted asylum.

We are led by lunatics. What other conclusion can you draw after the past 24 hours, following the horrific alkali attack in south London and the sickening attempts by the political and media classes to downplay the appalling, central fact of this case: that the alleged perpetrator was a convicted violent criminal who should never have been in this country at all, an Afghan national who was granted asylum on his third attempt and following a conviction for sexual offences.

A man suspected of carrying out a chemical attack that left a mother and child disfigured was twice denied asylum in the UK before being allowed to stay after claiming he had converted to Christianity, The Telegraph has learned.

Abdul Shokoor Ezedi, 35, who arrived illegally in the country in the back of a lorry in 2016, said his life would be in danger if he was returned to his native Afghanistan.

It is understood that Ezedi was twice refused asylum before being granted leave to remain in 2021 or 2022 after a priest vouched for his conversion and argued he was “wholly committed” to his new religion.

The hijab, a type of head covering, is used by Islamic regimes around the world as a tool to subjugate women. From Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to Afghanistan and Iran, the hijab symbolises women’s oppression. It represents a misogynistic ideology in which women are conceived as sexual objects to be concealed from men.

These are frazzled times. Farmers gumming up European roads, striking transport workers, ugly election campaigns, climate clamour and multiple wars, of course, straddling the globe. In London, shrill Palestinian sympathisers swollen with righteous fury are turning from mass rallies to guerrilla protests against companies deemed too close to Israel. Victoria’s Secret, Pizza Hut, Burger King: all apparently legitimate targets of disruption.

This public disorder blinds us to something deeper: a spreading sense of grievance in the Muslim world that could yet congeal into a threatening new militancy. The bombardment of Gaza is the catalyst but there are discontents on every continent.