It was reported last week that a school in Blackburn has ordered its pupils to wear a hijab (a head dress covering the girls’ faces) both in and OUT of school. What makes this calculating and overt act of religious control even worse is the fact that the school, the Tauheedul Islam Girls’High School, is state-funded, funded by taxes collected from ordinary UK citizens like you and me.

When I saw the headline (in last week’s Sunday Times) I did a double take. Surely that couldn’t be true? Then I read the article and, yes, it is. What on Earth are we coming to. What is happening to a country that has, since the Middle Ages at least, prided itself on practising the essential freedoms and religious tolerance? Why would we allow this to happen?

The misguided liberals, of all major parties, who have governed us for the last twenty years or so would say that my reaction (a reaction shared by the majority, I’m sure) is that of a reactionary bigot. Well is it? Here’s what a well-respected Muslim has to say.

Haras Rafiq, the former expert adviser to the Government on the prevention of Islamic extremism, prepared a dossier in 2011 raising concerns about the Tauheedul  Charitable Trust which aims to set up more schools like the one in Blackburn. The Government ignored his concerns  and granted permission for the setting up of three such schools. No doubt, more will follow. Rafiq was quoted as saying “I think it threatens to create young British Muslims who are not able to integrate in the wider society, who are living in isolation and outside the wider community”. He’s right and, as one concerned parent of a pupil at the Blackburn school said “Religion belongs in the place of worship or the home and not the classroom”.

What do the Government say to that? Surely, even the most blinkered liberal can see that their policies will do nothing but foster more resentment among right-thinking folk (both Muslims and otherwise) and ultimately will lead to more racial tension. If the Government wanted to act as a recruiting sergeant for the extreme right they couldn’t be doing a better job. Such fools.