Six weeks after it took place, the Oxford Union has released footage of its debate on Islam, and it’s yet another spectacular humiliation and defeat for bigot, criminal and scam artist Tommy Robinson.
A diverse team, which included the incongruous pairing of Palestinian Oxford Union president Arwa Elrayess, and former Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, easily put down the Islamophobes by a margin of 57 to 41.
Robinson’s team included fellow hatemongers and professional trolls, Lawrence Fox and Jonathan Sacerdoti.
The debate, titled This house believes that the West is right to be suspicious of Islam, was met with large protests back in June. Demonstrators were understandably irate at the Oxford Union offering an audience for Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon).
Alongside that, they argued with some justification that the motion was yet another platform for Islamophobia, when our legacy media grants just that every day of the week.
The counter-argument is that nothing harms charlatans like Robinson quite like exposing his hatred to scrutiny, and that’s exactly what happened as the opposing sides faced off.
Tommy Robinson challenged with facts and stats
Robinson began by attempting to claim that Islam is absolutist in nature, and incapable of finding common ground with others. He obviously is unaware that Muslims, along with Christians and Jews, lived in harmony for many years in places like Palestine. That is, until the creation of Robinson’s favourite exclusivist ethnostate, so-called ‘Israel’.
Likewise, contrary to what the far right would have us believe, there is no mass conflict led by Muslims against others in Britain or Ireland today. In reality, the worst violence that takes place is inflicted by intolerant non-Muslims against Muslims, migrants and people of colour, such as that carried out by loyalist thugs in Belfast.
Indeed, as Elrayess pointed out, Muslims are the most likely to be in favour of inclusive ways of organising society.
She said:
Eighty-five percent of British Muslims back democracy as the best system of government, [versus] the general public’s 71%. Ninety-four percent back equal treatment under the law for all faiths and none, [versus] the general public’s 80%.
Seven in 10 say they feel loyal to the United Kingdom; the general public – one in two. Eight in ten interact with non-Muslims at least weekly.
Nine in 10 say standing against bigotry, including antisemitism, matters to them. Four in ten have served themselves, or through family, in public service. On every single one of those measures, British Muslims are more committed to British values than the British average.
Of course these are universal human values rather than “British values”, but that aside, the stats certainly put Robinson’s divisive shit to rest.
Robinson went on to cite regressive attitudes to homosexuality in Muslim majority countries. He’s obviously forgotten that, in terms of the long stretch of human history, it’s the equivalent of an eye blink since being gay was illegal in most Christian majority countries.
Self-righteousness by a Briton on this topic is a bit like being a raging alcoholic for decades, then berating others for having a drink once you’ve been sober for a day.
Robinson runs down Britain from Spanish hideout
Tommy Robinson’s opponents picked up on his tendency to cite practices he claimed were Islamic, despite having no basis in the Qur’an itself. Though the fact that all religious texts are open to endless interpretation anyway, betrays the somewhat absurd premise of the motion, and much debate on religion. Such discussion is not a remotely scientific exercise, and there is no objective ‘Islam’ that can ever be identified, just as for any other faith.
Luton-based podcaster Michael Doward proceeded to further undermine Robinson. Doward points out that Robinson likes to bolster his street cred with references to his own time in the supposedly Muslim-dominated town, yet does so from the comfort of sunny Spain. There is a pattern of far-right figures who like to pontificate about Britain’s supposed ills from a safe distance several thousand miles away.
The generally odious Jacob Rees-Mogg managed one of his broken clock moments to finish the debate, telling Robinson and co:
I thought I was coming up against the hard men of the right of British politics. The people who have a reputation for being tough and forthright and powerfully patriotic, and it turns out that they are wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beasties!
Because they have no confidence in the West, in their nation, in the religion [Christianity, according to Mogg] that has made our nation fine and great and strong. Instead they’re sitting there in their homes at night, fretting that we’re suddenly going to be converted to Islam. Well I’m not.
Feeble far right quiver in the corner
Much as we hate to give Rees-Mogg any credit, this is an effective summary of the true nature of the far right. Fundamentally, they are a pathetic lot, characterised by fear more than anything.
Zionists live in a self-created imaginarium in which Jewish people are perpetually on the verge of suffering a new holocaust. Israeli Occupation Forces embark on racist, genocidal violence, in part to try and prevent this fictional outcome.
Loyalists live under a permanent siege mentality, forever terrified of Catholics, Muslims, migrants, people of colour, plus probably the shadows on the wall and creaking floorboards too at this point. The far right generally are constantly panicking about white genocide and Muslim takeovers, despite violence from white people against others being far more of an issue.
That feeble lack of confidence is clearly prompted in part by the paucity of their knowledge and ideas, embodied once again by the ridiculous Robinson on the debating stage.
Featured image via Oxford Union
