Common Sense has been absent for a while: not just as the publication of the Islamic Party of Britain, but also in the real world. The large-scale burning of carcasses of both healthy and diseased animals must be a clear sign to future historians that we have finally lost our balance completely. Would you kill all of your family because grandpa had the flue and might die from it? Foot and Mouth disease is an entirely curable infection, and it tends to afflict mainly weak animals. Destroying all livestock does not eliminate the causes, however. One large contributing factor has been intensive farming methods resulting in depleted soil, unnatural feeding practices (which also gave us BSE) and over-bred animals with low resistance. As the wholesale replacement of livestock will push small farmers out of business and favour large corporations, the problem will have been made worse rather than better. 

For our single-minded politicians (punching Prescott comes to mind) such matters do not give them sleepless nights, and all eyes now turn to the forthcoming election. Even though common sense was suddenly re-invented by the Conservative Party, there is little sense in the manifestos of any of the contesters. No amount of bickering over who should pay how much tax on what will disguise the fact the Britons have been, and will be, ripped off no matter who occupies 10 Downing Street. The interest on the accumulated national debt alone amounts to an annual 40 billion pound. This is money taken from everybody’s hard work and given to the banks in addition to the fees they charge their customers. It is money given to them for having created, by government permission, the money supply of the country: out of thin air, backed by nothing but the country’s capability to produce wealth. If the government created its own money without an interest charge attached (as it does on a very small scale in the form of what is known as the M0 aggregate), we could be saved these horrendous penalty payments, and the country would prosper. However, no government will try, for they know they would be sacked: not by the British people, but by their masters, the banks. 

This is why the Tories probably won’t win the next election, even though everybody is disillusioned with New Labour (an old story now). The banks want European-wide control, and British autonomy as advocated by some “Keep-the-Pound”-Tories does not suit the equation. Polling day will probably see some redistribution between Labour and Liberals. The print and broadcast media, paid by the same financial institutions, will see to that. And whilst the BBC is meant to be independent (paid for by the licence fees of people who don’t even watch its programmes or simply want to play their own video tapes on their own video machine – talk about extortion), you will be hard pressed to find a genuine discussion of our monetary system on any of its programmes. Who creates our money and why? is the big taboo question of our age. Money is power, and Rip-off Britain must continue undisturbed. 

We thought, therefore, it was time for another issue of Common Sense, even though we now prefer to use our web site (www.islamicparty.com) for the dissemination of information. It allows for a quicker response to events and creates less overheads than a print copy, although we know there are “Luddites” in our ranks who do not want to embrace the new medium. This issue is intended to raise some of the issues parliamentary candidates should be confronted with when coming to rake in our votes.

Other organisations have published material for the election. Some, like the Muslim Council of Britain’s “Electing to Listen” document, stick safely with education and health (and the weather?). Others have tried the root of appeasement, rubbing shoulders with those in office. At a recent (government-sponsored) award dinner organised by The Muslim News, those present were flattered that the prime minister honoured them with his presence and grand smile and intimated to them that he had read from a chapter called “The Cattle” in the Qur’an. However convenient a reference at the time of the Foot and Mouth crisis this might have been, it also showed that he had a lot more reading to do: seeing that The Cattle is only the second chapter of the Qur’an. More mature Muslims should judge politicians by what they do, not by what they claim to read.

We have held busy negotiations with a number of constituencies with regard to putting up Islamic Party candidates during this election. In the end we decided not to. The political landscape has changed as far as Muslims are concerned: there is now a desire to challenge the sitting MPs who have for too long taken the Muslim vote for granted. However, there is still not enough confidence within the communities to tackle an election campaign, and for the time being political energy should probably best be channelled into individual campaigns, for example, the boycott of Marks and Spencer due to the company’s overt support for Zionism, to mention a particular laudable cause. Come the next election in four years’ time (when things can “only get better” because the government of the day – no matter what persuasion – will have made them worse), and maybe the time will have come to take the Islamic alternative to the streets.

Author: Islamic Party of Britain

Date Published: May 2001

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