A British Conservative member of parliament faced backlash on Tuesday after suggesting that police arrest protesters who chant “Allahu Akbar”, an Arabic phrase used by Muslims to mean “God is great”.
MP Robert Jenrick made the comments during a televised interview with Sky News over accusations that British police had been treating far-right violent riots “more harshly” than other protests.
Jenrick criticised how police had handled pro-Palestine protests, which had been mostly peaceful despite their huge turnouts in comparison to the recent riots across the UK.
“I have been very critical of police in the past, particularly around the attitude of some police forces to the protests we saw since 7 October,” Jenrick said.
“I thought it was quite wrong that somebody could shout ‘Allahu Akbar’ on the streets of London and not be immediately arrested,” he added.
He was immediately criticised by his Conservative peer Sayeeda Warsi, who posted on X: “Every day before we start parliamentary business in the Commons and Lords we say a prayer and praise God – we say our parliamentary version of Allahu Akbars at the heart of democracy – a process Robert Jenrick is a part of. This language from Jenrick is more of his usual nasty divisive rhetoric – he is such a tool.”
Speaking later to Times Radio, Jenrick stood by his remarks.
“I fundamentally disagree with Sayeeda Warsi … If a politician like myself, a political leader who aspires to be the leader of the opposition of our country, cannot speak out about the undoubted problem we have as a country with Islamist extremism for fear of being falsely labelled as a racist by an individual such as Sayeeda Warsi, then that is a very troubling situation.”
TNA reached out to Jenrick for comments but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
