Queen’s Speech

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, your Lordships will be happy to hear that, in this debate on foreign affairs and defence, I propose to spend most of my allotted five minutes talking about Islam. I start by looking overseas, where the Uighur Muslims are being brutally treated by the Chinese, as are the Rohingya by Buddhist Burma, but the general picture is of a jihad advancing across the planet through west Africa, Mozambique, Syria, Ethiopia, Turkey and Nagorno-Karabakh. Coming closer to home, the French, the Swedes and the Austrians are waking up to the extent and effect of Muslim expansion in their societies. But if a large number of Written and Oral Questions from me to the Government over the last 12 years are anything to go by, Her Majesty’s Government are determined to ignore all this and to turn a blind eye to what is happening in this country, which brings me to our defence.

The Government’s central belief is that Islam is a religion of peace, of which Islamism is an aberration. In this they misunderstand Islam, which requires its followers to obey the Koran and to follow what Muhammad did and said. There is no separation of powers in Islam, as we know it—no division between parliament, Executive and legislature; it is a complete way of life. But the Koran contains a large number of verses which instruct Muslims to kill the Kaffir, or non-Muslims, and not to mingle with them. I have time to share only one of the former with your Lordships, verse 9.5:

“Kill the unbelievers, capture and besiege them and lie in wait for them in ambush”.


There are many such verses, which noble Lords can read for themselves, such as verses 4.56, 4.74, 8.12, 8.39, 8.60 and 47.4. As to not mingling or making friends with the rest of us, I give your Lordships verse 5.51, generally translated as:

“Oh ye who believe, take not the Jews and Christians for your friends. They are but friends and protectors to each other and he amongst you who turns to them is one of them”.


We must not forget that our Muslim population is growing 10 times faster than the rest of us so that, in 10 years’ time, on current trends, at least 10 of our local authorities will have Muslim majorities, including Birmingham.

To all this the Government intone that all such verses are capable of peaceful interpretation and that our Islamists have got it wrong. I submit—and this is my most important point—that, even if that were true, our Islamists can and do justify their evil deeds by reference to those verses.

Take, for example, the murderers of Drummer Rigby, in Woolwich, in 2013, who gave a memo to bystanders in which they quoted no fewer than 22 verses of the Koran, which justified their atrocity. It was produced in court at their trial, stained in Drummer Rigby’s blood. I have a colour photocopy here.

In conclusion, what could the Government do? First, they could require that all teaching in our mosques and madrassas is in English, so that we begin to understand what version of Islam is being taught to our Muslims and their children. Secondly, they could send home to their countries of origin all our imams who cannot speak English. The Government say that our immigration procedures weed them out on arrival, but they do not—not by a long chalk.

I look forward to the Minister’s reply to these suggestions. I hope that he does not tell me that the Government do not get involved in religions because, as I have mentioned, Islam is not only a religion, but a legal and political system, much of which is now dedicated to forming a world caliphate of which we will be part.