“Come to that do the Jehovah Witnesses ever doorstep in Muslim areas?”

They do. There’s a specifically Muslim door sticker for telling them to go away.

And who could forget that Alan Craig was quoted in the “Newham Recorder”
20th June 2001 “Unless there are safety or other technical objections the Muslim community should be allowed to build the mosque at West Ham” and
27th February 2002 “I argued publicly that the council should give the go-ahead to the West Ham mosque.”

As for the specific quotes. When I said “TJ’s track record is not a good one” its in reference to some of the integration issues in Dewsbury which have also been fuelled by the far right.

“Tablighi Jamaat may well be a peaceful organisation, BUT the mindset they incalcate in their members is not that different to that of the Taliban”

I didn’t quote this but, it’s not an outrageous claim as TJ and Taliban are both Deobandis. There is a lot of material on this.

“And it’s not just ex-Muslims, but also moderate, modernizing Muslims who want to give TJ the heave-ho”

Dr T Hargey wrote a very strong letter to the Times condemning them.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article3634739.ece there are also local petitions of Muslims that I read about and Ed Husain has condemned it but i can’t source them right now.

I have a problem with the national leader of the CPA’s way of presenting his arguments, which I find obsessive, together with his readiness to accuse others of acting in bad faith. Having read the post at 6:55 above, I now have the same problem with David Campanale. For example, the majority of Newham’s single-handed GPs will have retired before Polyclinics arrive.

Alan Craig has been photographed at the annual meeting of the Lawyers Christian Fellowship. It was LCF that organised for him to speak at the House of Commons. He was a Committee member of the Christian Congress for Traditional Values until its website went down followingthe embarassment of “Bishop” Michael Reid of Brentwood.

There’s more.

Thanks for pointing this out. Yes they are being disingenuous, see the differing wording for civil and criminal matters.

No government will allow anyone or group to usurp the criminal law and justice system per se. What is very clear and I have been following this along with other lawyers is that this gov. is quite happy to sacrifice Muslim women, by allowing pre decided supposedly ‘voluntary’ agreements, brokered by Muslim male powerbrokers, to be then incorporated into civil law by being rubber stamped by the British civil courts. That is covering divorce and other family issues. That’s not so important to this gov.

You recognise the idea… so many commentators say on these sites…and politicians in public… I suppose meaning to be really ‘reasonable” – let religion stay in the private sphere not the public sphere and this gov. goes along with that fine.

But private/civil means who you can be married to, who controls the money, how easy it is to abuse you and what chance you have escaping from abuse, whether crime against family members will be prosecuted, where your children live, who they are taught to obey, who supports them financially, where and if they get schooling etc.

See One Law for All campaign.
j.r.

http://www.onelawforall.org

“Tablighi Jamaat may well be a peaceful organisation, BUT the mindset they incalcate in their members is not that different to that of the Taliban”

“And it’s not just ex-Muslims, but also moderate, modernizing Muslims who want to give TJ the heave-ho”

What a load of rubbish. Where are you all sourcing these facts from. If your reading list is the Sun, the Star and blogs like these, then you are basing your comments on baseless and incorrect facts.

TJ and many groups like it have proven to be a positive asset to Britain and its hard working members have become the backbone of this country.

There are many bigger problems that this country faces, which include areas such as Healthcare, Education & Crime and there are countless members of the TJ who are excellent doctors, teachers and Police Officers who serve this country well and deserve to be respected.

Stop wasting your time on a non issue!

Some posts have attacked Alan rather than his views. He and his family have lived in the borough for 25 years. (read more here:
http://www.newham.cpaparty.org.uk/?page=your_councillors&id=1088) and his actions have always spoken louder than his words – including campaigns against Labour’s plans to replace Queens market by an Asda, the Excel Arms Fair, the doubling of flights at City Airport, Labour’s replacement in Canning Town of homes for local people by yuppie flats, the threat to local GPs through the introduction of polyclinics and the reality that the Olympics is delivering few jobs for Newham people.

These are actions which reflect the CPA’s stance as a mainstream Christian Democratic party – and nothing to do with the religious right. They perhaps also explain why local muslims vote CPA at elections and have taken their own stance against the mosque through their own petitions and public statements.