Sharia Comes To The High Street

Even at Christmas, our news organisations run stories that remind us of the fact that some groups, just don't integrate in to the warm cuddly inclusive UK society that some at the BBC, and the Liberal and Labour parties HQ's, think is what we are living in.

 

The latest of these is that a Muslim member of staff at the struggling shopping giant Marks and Spencer's, were apparently allowed to refuse to serve any customer who has bought either Alcoholic or Pork products (strangely not an issue to the Muslim corner shop owner near me).

 

This came to light when an M&S customer was requested to go to another till by a Muslim member of staff, when it was seen that they had a bottle of an alcoholic beverage in their bag (presumably after having queued for ages, at this time of year!).

Now there are obviously a few questions raised by this latest bit of race apartheid, that sets Muslims as 'different' from the rest of us .....

1. In 'Muslim areas' (as they often now refer to areas of Britain where they 'are the majority), will all the local M&S stores be told not to serve anything that offends against 'Sharia'?
2. Will this ability to refuse to serve Non-Muslims include serving any meat products that are not Halal?
3. How about them not serving any woman whose face is not covered?  
4. Or even insisting that if female Muslims, they can cover their faces with a Niqab, when a male who is not a relative is in the stores?

Its all very disturbing, and Marks and Spencer's later issued an apology "As a secular business we have an inclusive policy that welcomes all religious beliefs, whether across our customer or employee base ... We apologise that this policy was not followed in the case reported."

Other stores have been dragged into this ..... with many coming out with statements along the lines that they 'worked with their employees on a case-by-case basis, to let Muslims avoid handling alcohol or pork, and would allow similar exceptions for other religions' .... in other words, they did operate a similar policy, but try to avoid it coming to light by allowing Muslim staff to avoid certain duties. While the ASDA stores have said that they do not have a similar policy, but again try to avoid the situation coming up.

However the managing director of the John Lewis stores, even questioned whether members of staff should have the right to refuse to serve any customers. "This is taking it one stage beyond common sense, we certainly have never had any issue with our teams... we've not even had to have a policy on this. I would hope [members of staff] would understand that in their job this was probably going to be required." .... and that was the first bit of common sense I read or heard on the matter. If you apply for a sales job with a company, you can't then just 'pick'n'mix' which bit of the business you approve of, and refuse to perform the job fully .... or at least not if your not a Muslim.

Meanwhile, somewhere over the rainbow, in La LA PC land, on the BBC they have continued with their relentless propagation of the 'we are all just one shared and happy culture' message, by advertising a rather unfunny and low rated, but very PC TV show .....

.... which has as the lead character, the only Muslim character promoting Father Christmas in the UK (if not the world).

Now that really would be funny, if it wasn't actually evidence of the way the BBC actually thinks race relations really are in the UK.