To the Commons, where this afternoon a rather odd intervention took place. The Westminster rumour mill was in overdrive today as word spread that a Member of Parliament was planning to speak against a bill calling for a ban on marriages between first cousins. Not long after speculation began, it was confirmed that a new parliamentarian did indeed want to make his opposition known: one Iqbal Mohamed, Independent MP for Dewsbury and Batley and a member of Jeremy Corbyn’s pro-Gaza group. Good heavens…
Speaking to fellow parliamentarians today, Mohamed first accepted: ‘There are documented health risks with first cousin marriage and I agree this is an issue.’ He remarked that while ‘forced marriage must be prevented and the freedom of women must be protected,…the way to redress this is not to empower the state to ban adults from marrying each other, not least because I don’t think it would be effective or enforceable’. How curious.
Going on, Mohamed urged politicians to avoid ‘stigmatising’ couples who are first cousins – and instead called for ‘advanced genetic test screening for prospective married couples’ like that which exists in many Arab countries, alongside ‘health education programs targeting those communities where the practice is most common’. Not like the NHS isn’t under enough pressure, eh?
Calling on the House to vote against Richard Holden’s private members bill, the Independent MP concluded:
We should try to step into the shoes of those who perhaps are not from the same culture as ours, to better understand why the practice continues to be so widespread. An estimated 35 to 50 per cent of all sub-Saharan African populations either prefer or accept cousin marriages, and it is extremely common in the Middle East and in South Asia. The reason the practice is so common is that ordinary people see family intermarriage overall as something that is very positive, something that helps build family bonds and helps put families on a more secure financial foothold.
It’s certainly quite the take…
Watch the clip here:
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