Jacob Lets the Side Down

If you have the opportunity and the inclination it is worth watching the recent full debate at the Oxford Union on the motion ‘This House Believes the West is Right to be Suspicious of Islam’. I won’t rehash all the debate and, while I assume those for the motion were defeated, I have no idea what the outcome was. This one was always about the journey and not the destination.

I thought there were faults on both sides regarding style of presentation, interruptions of the opposing teams and tedious points of order. But what fascinated me most was what contribution Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg was going to make to the evening. On his prolific YouTube channel, Sir Jacob announced his intention to take part in the debate.

I am a huge fan of the Mogg and disagree with him on very few issues. His politics and brand of Catholicism almost exactly match mine. He is intelligent, articulate and highly amusing at times. But quite why he considered it necessary to take part in this debate (and on the side that was opposing the motion) is not clear to me.

I get the impression he was not invited to the debate; he volunteered himself and, of course, is such a catch that nobody would turn him down. But he made it clear from the outset that he was taking part specifically to debate against Tommy Robinson. I guess he just cannot contemplate being associated with Tommy. I think that Jacob may be a little bit of a snob. That and a desire at all costs to distance himself from a working-class hero.

The fact that Islam is a threat to the West and that we should be suspicious of it was demonstrated amply during the debate. The President of the Oxford Union – a Muslim herself, participating in the debate – told Tommy Robinson that he would have been ‘cooked’ had there not been Muslims like her there to protect him. Yes, Muslims like her, but these are not the ones we consider to be a threat; it is the Muslims who are not like her who would have torn Tommy Robinson apart, given the chance, about whom we hold suspicion.

Laurence Fox, supporting the motion, gave a brilliant demonstration of just how suspicious of Islam we should be in his cartoon in the envelope trick. He took to the podium with an envelope marked ‘CH’ – presumably a reference to Charlie Hebdo – explaining that the envelope contained a controversial cartoon, and saying that the contents would be revealed in due course. He was barely able to speak for interruptions from the opposition speakers and others, whose bowels were so loosened by the prospect of what was going to be revealed that they tried to stop him taking further part.

Even Jacob Rees-Mogg chipped in asking on a point of order if, since props were not permitted in the House of Commons, were they permitted here. The chairman ruled that they were not explicitly forbidden and allowed Fox to continue, as best he could. Ultimately, Fox opened the envelope theatrically and pulled out the cartoon which transpired to be one of Jacob Rees-Mogg. Much laughter and probably a few wet pants all round.

A notable feature of the debate was that those proposing the motion exclusively stuck to the point and dealt with the issue. Except for Rees-Mogg, those opposing the motion spent their time, in some cases to the exclusion of the issue at hand, denigrating Tommy Robinson and Laurence Fox. The chair ruled several times against them when both Robinson and Fox raised objections, but the opposition – especially the two nearly hysterical women, including the President – whose hatred for their opponents was palpable, merely persisted. Robinson and Fox repeatedly complimented the President in promoting the debate; their appreciation was not reciprocated.

And then The Grand Mogg took the floor and, frankly and uncharacteristically, spouted nonsense for the best part of ten minutes. He had already interrupted one speaker – Jonathan Sacerdoti – to say that we Christians were not innocent in all this having sacked Constantinople in 1204. Fair point, Jacob, but what other examples of Christian excess did you refer to? Oh yes, none. And alongside the current long list of Islamic atrocities – many within our shores in recent years – how many current or recent Christian atrocities could you or any on your side of the table muster? Oh yes, none. I can think of one towards the end of the last century but I am not going to do your homework for you.

Jacob Rees-Mogg’s thesis was that we had nothing to fear from Islam as we were a Christian country with Christian values, and our Constitution would not permit Sharia courts to operate. He also said that we would not have modern accounting were it not for Islamic scholars, but I think we’d have probably managed to work that one out for ourselves. The problem for Jacob Rees-Mogg is that we are not a Christian country with Christian values; he may need to get out of his pile in Somerset a bit more and see what life in modern Britain is really like. Moreover, Sharia courts are already operating; witness what happened to the autistic boy who dropped a copy of The Koran, with the cooperation of the West Yorkshire Police. He and his mother were utterly humiliated in front of a Sharia court with a senior West Yorkshire police officer looking on.

To top it all, having questioned the use of a prop by Laurence Fox, Rees-Mogg proceeded to produce a reliquary containing a piece of The True Cross. He waved it about a bit which, I thought was a tad disrespectful. As a fellow Roman Catholic, in the presence of a fragment of The True Cross, I would probably have knelt. Talk about casting pearls before swine. The point of this exercise was not clear – to own a fragment of The True Cross is reserved for the very privileged among us Catholics. If The True Cross has the remarkable powers to protect, then I guess Jacob and his kin will be safe as houses when the civil war comes. It’s the rest of us who must worry.

Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK. His Substack can be found here.