Letters | 12 December 2009

Balls to Gilligan

Sir: As Andrew Gilligan well knows, I abhor the anti-semitic and anti-democratic views ascribed to Hizb ut Tahrir and I take any accusations of extremist views being taught in schools very seriously (‘Minister for Hizb ut Tahrir’, 5 December).

That is why when allegations about links between Hizb ut Tahrir and the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation were first raised in 2007, I asked Ofsted to investigate both the independent schools run by the foundation. No evidence of anti-semitic or anti-Western values being taught was found — either then or in subsequent investigations.

The pamphlet which Mr Gilligan quoted from was written by one of the head teachers six years ago. I disagree with the views expressed, as would the vast majority of British Muslims. But this is not evidence of extremist views being actually taught in the classroom — and none has been found or presented.

Mr Gilligan raises an interesting analogy with the BNP. There is currently no law to prevent BNP members from being school teachers or governors, just as there is nothing to stop members of Hizb ut Tahrir from being so. What matters is not an individual’s personal views but what is taught in the classroom. The review of racism in schools, which I announced in September, is considering whether we need to go further and ban members of racist organisations from teaching.

Ed Balls
Secretary of State for Children, School and Families London SW1



All there in black and white


Sir: Basile Kotschoubey’s response (5 December) to my letter of 21 November engages in a debate about the relative odiousness of apartheid South Africa and the Soviet Union, which I neither intended to start nor wish to continue. Nevertheless, he ended with a simple question: did South Africa’s friends in the British Conservative party yearn ‘to institute an apartheid-style regime in Britain?’ The easiest way to answer this question is to quote from the Monday Club pamphlet ‘Who Goes Home? Immigration and Repatriation’, published in 1969.