To think it's key for government to take a stronger approach to cracking down on extremism and anti Semitism in Muslim faith schools and after school madrasas?

[Jane379]

It's clear that while sections of the immigrants who've come recently have dangerous attitudes towards women among other things, a lot of the serious problems we're having with anti Semitism now stem from extreme versions of Islam which exist among people who were born here. Take Essa Suleiman, who came here in Thatcher's time as a child.

The 2010s had more discourse about the influence of Muslim faith schools and after schools madrasas, but what was actually done? It's clear that in several areas, Bradford for one, extreme attitudes persistent among at least some sections of the Muslim community. Cousin marriage despite the heavily proved risk of severe disability is another sign of this. As is the persistence of grooming gangs in several areas. 

Obviously huge numbers of British Muslims are moderate in their views, and many madrasas and Muslim faith schools are fine. But I think there is strong evidence many are not, and the government must address this.

AIBU?

I agree completely.

People should be safe to live in a multicultural liberal society and they should not experience prejudice on the basis of their religion but equally they have a responsibility to respect the values of liberal democracy that they live in.

Agree. We should be far more intolerant towards intolerance.

For instance, in 2019, an inspection of the Jamia Islamia school in Birmingham found books promoting extremist views, including support for Islamic State and the Taliban, intolerant statements about Jews and Christians, and condoning physical punishment of children in the school library. These findings contributed to an ‘inadequate’ overall rating.

Yes, while there have been issues with schools of other religions, they seem to be more educational failings rather than actual extremism and intolerance of non Muslims.

We need Ofsted to be keeping an extra close eye on faith schools due to the above. I very much hope that Ofsted are not hampered in their work by the government adopting a broad definition of Islamophobia and it being weaponised against them.

committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/122829/html/

It’s the thing no one ever wants to look at. Multi faith schooling leads to division. The French manage this better in terms of their expectations of how the state interacts with faith. The answer is it doesn’t.

But the opening poster says that the government is already cracking down on such places, but they think the government should be harder. "the government should take a stronger approach to cracking down", therefore the "cracking down" must already be happening?

Mm. I think they have been shamed into looking at these issues. Cracking down isn’t what I would call it.

www.secularism.org.uk/opinion/2025/09/are-we-sleepwalking-into-multifaith-sectarianism

No religious schools, no private schools.

If we want a society that is socially cohesive we need to educate all our children together.

We promote inclusivity where possible for disability, why not for religion?

Unfortunately, that would also mean no home education, which I would find sad, but necessary.

"For instance, in 2019, an inspection of the Jamia Islamia school in Birmingham found books promoting extremist views, including support for Islamic State and the Taliban, intolerant statements about Jews and Christians, and condoning physical punishment of children in the school library. These findings contributed to an ‘inadequate’ overall rating."

They need to be really hot on stopping this promotion of extremist views.

As a Jewish person, yes, this should definitely be kept on top of, but with the clear proviso we are talking about extremism and promotion of hate - not on people being Muslim or Muslims having faith schools. In the same way they should continue to ensure ultra-Orthodox Jewish schools are teaching children the national curriculum, and are not discouraging kids from learning/speaking English (as sometimes happens). This is something that Ofsted does as I know a school near us was failed for not teaching national curriculum skills and I think a general sense of promoting a separation from the rest of society that would disadvantage the children. Religion should not be used as a way to keep members apart from wider society, or to promote a hateful viewpoint of any other group.

I wouldn't entirely object to there being no religious schools, TBH, even though my kids went to a Jewish primary, but I suppose there's a risk that people get pushed into dodgy 'home education' scenarios.

I agree, even moderate faith schools will be pushing a level of intolerance by prioritising their religion over others.

Religion should only be in school as an educational provision, not as an overarching dogma.

The UK is a beacon for many people who want to exploit its liberalism and freedoms so that they can promote their own ideology which is the exact opposite. It’s scary how much this, and all sorts of rule breaking, poor citizenship and illegal activity is allowed to just happen and go unchecked across many sectors of our society.

This is exactly what I'm worried about!

The Gulf States have a hugely underrated role in this, in particular Saudi Arabia. While they superficially moderate under the new king, they spread extreme material in loads if UK mosques for years. The Saudi royal family's links to the 9/11 terrorists are only recently being looked into more.

Our oil dependency is a huge weakness- recently Saudi government seems to have scaled down the promotion of fundamentalist Wahhabi (the 18th century movement that, along with the Salafi and Deobandi schools, made Islam as a whole much more fundamentalist) teaching over here- but how much damage have they caused? And how can it be fixed?

Yes, I agree. Maybe moderate schools of any faith are fine but there are too many Muslim schools which are not.

Other school issues have historically also been ignored by the government. Most Jewish schools are fine but a minority of Haredi (ultra Orthodox) schools have had issues such as insufficient English instruction with pupils in late teens only able to speak Yiddish.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04n1x7p

The recent terrible wave of Anti Semitism makes it very hard to address these issues within the Haredi community now,,it should have been addressed long before.

Romany children are another group being failed. Some are fine, but many are withdrawn from school at 14 and not adequately homeschooled afterwards. Why is this allowed?

Thank you, this is exactly what I think. I don't in theory object to religious schools but the way things are going, maybe a ban is the cleanest solution. Or maybe not...
It's worth noting a lot of issues in the Muslim community seem to be being caused by after school madrasas rather than schools per se,,so these also need to be addressed.

I'm not sure if faith schools should be banned. I personally think ideally society would confine religious education to weekends- I think a total ban would be arguably heavy handed though.

Maybe not banned. But not government funded maybe?

@Screamingabdabz and what's worse is that we are operating a two tier society where some people live under our free and liberal laws but others do not at all.

There's no need to ban them (which would probably be impossible anyway). They just need to be properly scrutinised and regulated, without fear or favour. Our inspection regime just hasn't been anything like robust enough.

The thing is what dangeous stuff would a Catholic primary be preaching or a church of England !!

YANBU. Modern antisemitism is almost entirely coming from the Islamic community.

Stopping funding could cause schools to go underground/become private and subject to less regulation.

The best course of action would be to abolish faith schools of all religion. They are dangerous and in 2026 completely unnecessary.

I think a sector of Muslims (obviously many are NOT like this at all) are the most likely to attempt violence towards Jews.

But I also think a lot of non Muslims use the Israel Gaza conflict as an excuse to be anti Semitic. On the CITME boards here, there're been loads of anti Semitic posts (as opposed to legitimate criticisms of Israeli government policy). Were those posters all Muslim? Plenty of probably non Muslim people have been photographed being anti Semitic on marches about the war too. Tackling anti Semitism fully will require a wider focus.

Private schools are still Ofsted inspected and subject to some rules, surely? I take your point.

Definitely agree that our inspection system is rubbish. Otoh we have tragic cases of cruelty such as the inspection which led to Ruth Perry's suicide, but on the other hand, they seem much too lenient.