Sharia law reinforces separation and alienation in multicultural Britain

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Opponents to sharia have said the Islamic system is contrary to British justice (Getty)

Instead of wasting public money instituting on an inquiry into the functioning of Sharia Courts, the Government should seriously consider getting rid of them. Once you accept Sharia laws and Sharia Courts, you indirectly accept that Muslims are intrinsically different, and hence deserve special treatment. Religious communities do not need separate civil courts to restore the balance between national citizenship and community membership. If they did, Hindus and Sikhs too would have demanded for such personal laws as well as courts.

To create social cohesion and communal harmony Britain needs a uniform civil code, not Sharia laws or personal laws, for such laws reinforce separation and alienation and can pave the way for non-violent extremism.

Randhir Singh Bains
Gants Hill, Essex

Owen Smith’s record scrutinsed

Hard man of the left and former Pfizer drug pusher, Owen Smith of the Pontypridd Popular Front, is fulminating about “secret” Tory plans to privatise the NHS. Is this the same Owen Smith who lobbied for further private sector involvement in the NHS during his time as head of policy and government relations at Pfizer, and who is on record supporting PFI and the benefits of privatisation in the health service? What could possibly be the cause of such radical inconsistency?

While cynics may argue that Smith is willing to consider all manner of performance-enhancing strategies to boost his alpha male leadership credentials, could this recent reddening indicate an adverse reaction to medication? While Smith boasts that he doesn’t need Viagra, he is exhibiting a number of the major side effects, most notably erratic red flushes, a loss of vision and a prolonged election. Maybe Smith is more to be pitied than scorned.

Andy Halewood
Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire

Brexit role reversal

Andrew Grice made the point that, as 60 per cent of the over 65s voted Brexit and 73 per cent of 18-24s voted Remain, “if the referendum had been held 10 years later it might have gone the other way”. If you apply these percentages to the roughly 700,000 joining and “leaving” the electorate each year, the referendum result would in fact – assuming voting patterns remain the same – be reversed in just two years.

Mike Channell
Worcestershire

Why do we ignore the basic fact that, after Brexit, party politics is dead or dying in the UK?

Victor Lawrance
London, N12

I remain genuinely surprised that May did not co-opt Nigel Farage (or another Ukip luminary, if that is the mot juste) onto the Brexit negotiation team with Messrs Johnson, Fox and Davis. It is important that all the culprits are equally spattered when the project hits the fan.

Steve Ford
Haydon Bridge

Now we have an opportunity to end unnecessary and harmful agricultural subsidies. There is no economic justification for such subsidy, which we taxpayers can now afford less than ever. It has singularly failed to save the small family farm and continues to cause the destruction of wildlife and the opportunity for developing economies to prosper. The NFU gets away with arguments that would cause the RMT to be hounded to extinction. They demand subsidy for their industry while voting to deny it to all others.

I well remember an Australian friend explaining the collapse of their agriculture by the fact they have fewer taxpayers to subsidise it than we have in Europe and America. Meanwhile, African farmers are locked out of markets they desperately need, denying us genuinely cheaper food and future trading partners. Let them sell us their crops, so they can become buyers of our services and manufactured goods. Trade can perhaps help end poverty, better than charity.

Let’s appoint rangers across the land to enforce on our collective judgement regarding what lives and what dies. Why should an over-privileged few decide? Let’s use our territory more for leisure and recreation than for food production, which is more economically performed overseas, like so much else. We might produce much more renewable energy instead.

Those who are happy to help in responsible and innovative land use can be rewarded, while those who rape it for quick profit while shutting the rest of us out can look elsewhere for easy money.

Dr Ian East
Islip, Oxfordshire

Russian relations

The UK has suddenly sought better relations with Russia, notably to work with her in Syria. So although she has not budged an inch, she wins yet again. In fact she has consistently supported President Assad, firmly in power once more despite the West, which helps attack its Isis enemies. She is firmly ensconced in Crimea and east Ukraine. And now President Erdogan is placating President Putin, increasingly powerful since the Smolensk air crash in 2010. The UK has already weakened the EU by Brexit and now may well undermine the West further with an injudicious, unilateral, pro-Russia policy. It should be careful; a military confrontation may yet arise.

Dr Marek Laskiewicz
London, W6

A sporting chance

I recollect that the oath for the 1948 Wembley Olympics included the words that the honour was not in the winning but in the taking part. Have we lost something?

Rev John Lane
Lichfield

For a long time now I have been thinking of recording how many of The Independent’s football stories are about managers of football teams rather than about footballers actually playing football. In your 12 August Daily Edition you ask your writers what they are looking forward to most in the new premiership season. Not a single one of them is looking forward to watching any football, merely which manager will get one over on which other manager. Could the endless soap opera of football managers be relegated to a different section of the publication?

Anthony Nixon
Waterlooville, Hampshire

There is a widely-held suspicion among that all of geopolitics is about making the world safe for golfers, golf courses and international golf tournaments. When there is a Baghdad International Open, you will know that the Iraqis have come in from the cold.

Yugo Kovach
Winterborne Houghton, Dorset