Religious influence growing

The scaling down of religious influence in state schools must be made an urgent priority if Britain is to avoid a dangerous social split in our society. After reading about the launch in the House of Lords by Baroness Uddin of her demand for more Muslim schools to include uni-sex education, prayer rooms in schools, mandatory religious education for Muslims as well as other religious concessions, the government needs to think again. The changes Baroness Uddin calls for would in fact add to the isolation of the Muslim community, which would eventually lead to a deterioration in race relations. A third of schools are already religious ones. Yet the Government, with the clear endorsement of the Prime Minister, has encouraged a programme for over a hundred Church of England schools. As predicted, this has inevitably fuelled calls for Muslim, Jewish and Hindu schools, for example. Whether or not this latest initiative is a cynical attempt to woo the Muslim vote, it flies in the face of a report on community cohesion published by the Government itself last month. The Deputy Prime Minister’s Office report on Social Cohesion contains numerous criticisms of single faith schools and concerns about the lack of cohesion associated with them. It warned in its recommendations that ‘Single faith schools’ tend not to see their role in promoting social cohesion. No new faith schools should be approved unless they are committed to promoting multicultural education and where homosexuality is accepted rather than condemned. A poll by YouGov (Reported in Daily Telegraph 26 May 2004) showed that the 53% of respondents believe the Government "should encourage the parents of all faiths to send their children to the same schools". The Government must secularise our education system as soon as possible. Schools should be for teaching not preaching and if the wholesale expansion of religious schools continues the consequences for race relations in decades to come could be disastrous.

Surely in 2004 the Labour Party of any political party should not condone or want to create more faith based schools. Religion divides society and we are seeing greater polarisation, which can only lead to the growth of support for the BNP.

A secular Britain is a stronger and happier one – religion should only be personal spiritual choice and not supported by the state.