{"id":11336,"date":"2026-03-20T14:13:26","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T01:13:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/?p=11336"},"modified":"2026-03-20T14:14:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T01:14:28","slug":"backlash-over-call-to-ban-public-prayer-for-muslims-in-the-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/?p=11336","title":{"rendered":"Backlash over call to ban public prayer for Muslims in the UK"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Libby Brooks,\u00a0<\/em>Severin Carrell\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>Peter Walker<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reform party leader criticised for making comments after event held in London\u2019s Trafalgar Square this week.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Muslim leaders have condemned Nigel Farage\u2019s call to ban public prayer by Muslims in the UK as bigoted and warned of a \u201cgrowing tide of hate\u201d after the Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, questioned whether the events fitted \u201cwithin the norms of British culture\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Farage was speaking at the launch of Reform UK\u2019s manifesto for the forthcoming Scottish parliament elections when he made the remarks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He described as \u201ca wake up call and a warning to everybody\u201d an event in Trafalgar Square earlier this week where hundreds of Muslims and people of other faiths prayed together, before the celebration of Eid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the event, organised by the Ramadan Tent Project and attended by Sadiq Khan, London\u2019s mayor, was \u201can open, deliberate, wilful attempt, not at the private observance of a different religion, but the attempt to overtake, intimidate and dominate our way of life\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The event has happened in the historic square in central London five times before <\/strong>without incident or previous controversy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked by a reporter if he would like to see such events banned in future, he replied: \u201cWe wouldn\u2019t want to stop individuals praying but mass prayer is banned in many Muslim countries in the Middle East itself. So, yes, we have to stop this kind of mass demonstration, provocative demonstration, in historic British sites.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such restrictions vary from country to country, and could be related to political or religious tensions or public safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The former first minister and SNP MSP Humza Yousaf said: \u201cNigel Farage seems to have no issues with Christian prayer, Hannukah, Vaisakhi or Diwali all being celebrated in Trafalgar Square. He only has a problem with Muslims praying. There is a word for that, bigotry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yousaf, the UK\u2019s first Muslim first minister, added: \u201cWhile I have come to expect nothing less from a charlatan like Nigel Farage, I am angry and disappointed that such rhetoric has been mainstreamed from the likes of Nick Timothy MP, a member of His Majesty\u2019s opposition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Badenoch backed Timothy, her shadow justice secretary, after he claimed that Islamic prayers taking place in public were intimidating and unBritish, with Labour saying the Conservatives had embraced the \u201cgutter\u201d politics of prejudice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked if she agreed with Timothy, or with arguments from other Tories that the main worry about the event was about prayers being separated for women and men, Badenoch said: \u201cThis debate which Nick is having is not about freedom of religion. It is about how religion is expressed in a shared public space, and whether those expressions fit within the norms of a British culture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, said Farage\u2019s remarks exemplified his \u201ctoxic, poisonous politics\u201d. \u201cThe Farage circus came to town, and once again, he demonstrated that he is a cynical chancer who wants to divide us. Reform are just failed Tories and offer Scotland nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recent opinion polls have put Reform neck and neck or ahead of Scottish Labour, but a Ipsos Scottish Political Pulse survey on Thursday suggested their popularity was slipping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shaista Gohir, a crossbench peer and leader of the Muslim Women\u2019s Network UK, said: \u201cWhen these gatherings are conducted responsibly \u2013 without obstructing roads, causing disruption, and with proper safety measures \u2013 why then do some politicians seek to ban them?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe answer is simple: they object to the sight of them. This reflects a deep-seated hatred toward Muslims. No other faith communities face comparable scrutiny or antagonism from these politicians in the way Muslims do\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Akeela Ahmed, the chief executive of the British Muslim Trust, warned that British Muslims \u201cmust not become a political football\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWords have consequences \u2013 and those who genuinely believe in the British values of tolerance, equality under the law and freedom of religion must not allow those values to be cast aside in attempt to marginalise British muslims\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Farage was speaking to a rowdy audience of about 500 supporters at a country club near Glasgow alongside his party\u2019s Scotland leader, Malcolm Offord, as they introduced candidates for the Holyrood elections in May, where Reform UK will stand candidates in all seats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Launching a manifesto that pledged Reform UK will \u201cmake Scotland the most successful part of the UK\u201d, Offord said Scots were \u201cbeing forced to pay the highest taxes anywhere in the UK\u201d and repeated the promise to scrap Scotland\u2019s six-band income tax system \u2013 in which higher earners pay significantly more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Offord said that concerns about social cohesion in Glasgow, the UK\u2019s biggest asylum dispersal area after London, were \u201cnot something we are making up\u201d, and the manifesto pledged to restrict who can apply for homelessness support in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The manifesto also pledged to scrap all the SNP government\u2019s net zero related targets, subsidies and quangos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Libby Brooks,\u00a0Severin Carrell\u00a0and\u00a0Peter Walker Reform party leader criticised for making comments after event held in London\u2019s Trafalgar Square this week. Muslim leaders have condemned Nigel Farage\u2019s call to ban public prayer by Muslims in the UK as bigoted and warned of a \u201cgrowing tide of hate\u201d after the Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, questioned whether<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11337,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[909,910,186],"coauthors":[364],"class_list":{"0":"post-11336","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-faith","8":"tag-muslims","9":"tag-public-prayer","10":"tag-uk"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11336"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11338,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11336\/revisions\/11338"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11336"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=11336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}