They’re Coming for Your Ancient Liberties – And This Time Through the Front Door

Evening, Common Sensers.

Pull up a chair, grab a brew, and let me tell you what’s going on while most of the country is still arguing about whether it’s too early for Christmas adverts.

The Government couldn’t sneak a Muslim blasphemy law in through the back door, so now they’re kicking the front door off its hinges instead.

Remember Hamit Coskun? The bloke who burned a copy of the Quran outside the Turkish consulate in London as a protest? Perfectly peaceful, no one hurt, just a man making a point with a box of matches and a book he’d bought fair and square.

Magistrates convicted him of a “religiously aggravated” public order offence. Straight to the High Court he went, and last month Mr Justice Bennathan threw the whole thing out with the sort of judgment that makes you want to stand up and cheer.

Let me read you the money quote, because it’s pure English gold:

“The right to freedom of expression, if it is a right worth having, must include the right to express views that offend, shock or disturb.”

Spot on. The sort of thing you’d expect to see carved above the door at the Old Bailey. Offend, shock, or disturb. That’s the whole point of free speech, isn’t it? If nobody’s ever offended, you’re not doing it right.

But the Crown Prosecution Service – yes, the same outfit that can’t be bothered prosecuting half the burglaries in London – has decided this judgment simply won’t do. So they’re appealing. They want the conviction reinstated.

And here’s the absolute kicker: their argument isn’t that burning a book is blasphemy (they know they’d lose that one in five seconds flat). No, they’re being clever. They say it was “disorderly” because the act of “desecration” was likely to provoke Muslims into violence.

Read that again. Slowly.

They’re saying: “We’re not banning the burning of the Quran because it’s blasphemous. We’re banning it because some people might get so angry about the blasphemy that they’ll riot.”

If the CPS wins this appeal, we have – to all intents and purposes – a functioning Islamic blasphemy law. You can burn a Bible, a Torah, a Bhagavad Gita, or a copy of Richard Dawkins till you’re blue in the face and nobody will touch you. But touch a Quran and suddenly you’re responsible for the hypothetical violence of anyone who takes offence.

It’s the heckler’s veto on steroids. It’s saying the angriest mob in the room gets to write the law. And we all know which mob has been winning that particular contest lately.

This isn’t some obscure legal footnote. Whatever the Court of Appeal decides will be cited in every future case involving criticism of Islam – from Quran burnings to cartoons, from stand-up comedy to academic lectures. Lose this one and the chilling effect will be instant. People will self-censor rather than risk prosecution for “provoking” the easily provoked.

We’ve been here before, of course. For centuries the English common law position was crystal clear: there is no right not to be offended. You could blaspheme against Christianity all day long and the worst you’d get was a funny look from the vicar. We abolished the offence of blasphemy in 2008 precisely because we’d grown up as a society.

Now they want to reintroduce it – but only for one religion. And they’re doing it not by persuading Parliament (they know they’d never get it through), but by twisting “public order” law until it squeals.

If Hamit Coskun wins this appeal, it’ll be a glorious victory for every single one of us who still believes England should be a country where you can say what you think without looking over your shoulder.

If he loses, we might as well dig up Voltaire and tell him the bad news: looks like you were wrong, mate. Everything is not defensible to the death after all – only the stuff that doesn’t upset the wrong people.

The appeal hearing is coming up soon. Keep an eye on it. Because what happens to one bloke with a lighter and a paperback could decide whether the rest of us keep the right to offend, shock, or disturb.

And if you think that right isn’t worth defending, try living without it for five minutes.

I know which side I’m on.

Mike Graham
London, November 2025