London, a city where Muhammad was the most popular name given to newborn baby boys last year, could soon elect its first Muslim mayor.
On Friday, the U.K.'s main opposition Labour Party selected Sadiq Khan, a former government minister and a Muslim of Pakistani descent, as its London mayoral candidate.
Khan has mixed his Muslim faith with progressive politics, supporting same-sex marriage while at the same time personally keeping to the Islamic ban on alcohol.
Missing from much of the media coverage of Khan’s mayoral candidacy is that he served as chairman of the socialist Fabian Society and currently sits on the radical group’s executive committee.
The Fabian Society says it seeks to help advance what it regards as an evolutionary transition from capitalism to socialism through gradualist democratic efforts instead of violent revolution. The British Labour Party was founded by Fabian socialists, and the Fabian Society remains one of 15 socialist societies affiliated with the Labour Party.
Socialist treatise
In 2008, Khan penned an 86-page pamphlet for the Fabian Society titled “Fairness Not Favours: How to Reconnect with British Muslims.”
WND reviewed the pamphlet in full.
In his socialist treatise, Khan made the case for British Muslims to be the recipients of more public welfare programs. He advocated increases in universal measures such as child benefits and a rise in the national minimum wage as ways to aid the British Muslim community.
The politician called for increased public support for large families, noting the average British household is approximately 2.31 people, while in Muslim households the figure not only doubles but often triples.
Khan’s Fabian Society paper urged the Labour Party to take advantage of British Muslims as a voting bloc, recommending the establishment of what he dubbed “Operation Muslim Vote” as a “route into community empowerment which takes into account a history of disaffection and mistrust in the democratic process.”
When it comes to education and Islam, Khan outlines a plan for the country’s Teacher Training Agency to revise and update its teacher training programs “to provide more robust training that explores issues of faith and identity and the issues of community cohesion more widely.”
Khan envisions a symbiotic relationship between mosques and the British school system, saying, "Imams should help teachers."
“Sermons at the local Mosques by Imams on the importance of parental participation in schools can aid teachers in their role,” he wrote.
He recommended “more Muslim school governors,” urging Muslim parents to play a larger role in the PTAs and governing bodies of the public school system.
'Trojan Horse plot'
Last year, Britain was rocked by reports of an organized attempt by Islamic activists to introduce Islamist or Salafist principles into several public schools in Birmingham, England.
The scandal, termed the “Trojan Horse Plot” by the U.K. media, was capped off by the publication of a detailed blueprint by the alleged plot’s ring leader, Tahir Alam, chairman of governors at Park View school in Birmingham.
The 72-page document presented ways of manipulating teachers and curriculum, replacing secular head teachers with radical Muslim staff and governors, and called for “girls [to] be covered except for their hands and faces.”
Meanwhile, in his Fabian Society pamphlet, Khan took issue with some fundamentalist Islamic practices, slamming honor killings and forced marriages in British Muslim society as “completely unacceptable in this country and in fact in any decent society.”
“We must all agree that honour killings are murder and forced marriages are kidnapping,” he added.
Khan’s candidacy follows a recent YouGov survey which found that 55 percent of Londoners would be comfortable with a Muslim mayor while 31 percent would not.
The poll was followed by another showing London residents warmed to Khan when shown TV footage of him and his likely mayoral challenger, Zac Goldsmith of the Conservative Party. The survey found Khan leading in the polls by 44 percent to Goldsmith’s 35 percent.
If elected, Khan’s mayoral powers would put him in charge of “holding Britain’s largest police service to account, creating and enforcing a framework for what gets built on London land and what gets knocked down, and exercising close control of the transport networks of an urban economy on which the rest of the country depends,” reports the Guardian newspaper.
Speaking after his nomination, Khan said his priority will be to bring “equality” to London, home to some of the world's richest people.
"Our burning ambition must be to ensure that all Londoners have the same opportunities," he said at a press conference after being nominated.
"London must once again become a city in which everyone can fulfill their potential."