Former Labour minister didn’t call for Sharia law

A viral post claims to be quoting former Labour government minister Shahid Malik saying it was his desire for Labour’s Muslim MPs to take over parliament and replace British Christian culture with Sharia law. It is completely false. 

For starters, the picture accompanying the post is not a picture of Mr Malik. It’s a picture of Chuka Umunna, the MP for Streatham and a member of the Independent Group of MPs (who left the Labour Party in February 2019).

Secondly, Mr Malik never said those words. Following the YouTube link in the post leads to an edited video of Mr Malik at the Global Peace and Unity event in 2008, not a “Muslim Council meeting [in] 2014” as the post suggests.

The full video is available here, during which Mr Malik says:

“In 1997 we got our first Muslim MP, in 2001 we had two Muslim MPs, in 2005 we had four Muslim MPs. Inshallah [God willing] in 2009/10 we’ll have eight Muslim MPs. In 2014 we’ll have 16 Muslim MPs.

“At this rate the whole parliament will be Muslim. But just to say, in case there are journalists here today, that is not my objective.

“But you know we’ve got four Muslim MPs. There should be 20 Muslim MPs in parliament and inshallah very shortly we’ll see that.

“And I’m confident as Britain’s first Muslim minister that, inshallah, in the next 30 years or so we’ll see a prime minister in this country who happens to share my faith.”

At no point does he mention Sharia law, or say anything about replacing British or Christian culture with Sharia law. 

In 2006 Mr Malik wrote a piece about Sharia law in the Sunday Times headlined “If you want sharia law, you should go and live in Saudi.”

Finally the post describes Mr Malik as “Labours [sic] Alien and Justice Minister.” Mr Malik was a junior minister in the justice department though the role of “Alien and Justice Minister” is made up.