Taj Hargey, the Oxford imam and scholar who robustly defended Boris Johnson in the row over burkas this week, has a habit of asking vivid questions and then answering them himself with a punchiness that makes the former foreign secretary seem timid and colourless.
“Do you think that these Wahhabis, Saudis and other extremists are going to be content with the burka and niqab?” he asks. “No! [The burka] is a fifth column, it’s a Trojan horse. They are going to bring other forms of Sharia down the pike. This is not the end of the story.
“White, liberal, Guardian-type readers think that they should allow this multiculturalism, where everything is equal, to flourish. They are in for a rude shock. One day they will wake up, if nothing happens [to stop it], to an Islamic republic of Britain. Now, before that happens I’m out of here. If tomorrow an Islamic Republic of Britain is announced, I leave tonight.” [The Times (£)] Read more