United Voices is rejecting President Donald Trump’s claim, made from the podium of the United Nations General Assembly, that London “wants to go to Sharia law” — calling it a fabricated conspiracy theory with no factual basis and a clear political purpose: to distract Western audiences from U.S. support for the ongoing killing in Gaza.
Speaking at the UN, Trump said of London: “You have a terrible mayor, terrible, terrible mayor, and it’s been so changed, so changed. Now they want to go to Sharia law, but you’re in a different country. You can’t do that.” He offered no source for the claim. A spokesperson for London Mayor Sadiq Khan responded: “We are not going to dignify his appalling and bigoted comments with a response.”
“The claim that London — a city dominated by the political left, in a country run by a secular government — is somehow moving toward Islamic law is not a policy argument. It is a deliberate lie,” United Voices said. “And it is being deployed at exactly the moment when Western governments need their publics looking anywhere but at Gaza.”
United Voices pointed to reporting showing that the Israeli foreign ministry commissioned polling in the months before this surge in anti-Muslim rhetoric — polling that found stoking fear of Muslims and Islamic law was the most effective strategy for distracting Western audiences from the Gaza genocide. The timing of the fearmongering, from Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s false claims about signing “Sharia law bans” to Trump’s UN remarks, is not a coincidence.
This rhetoric is not harmless political theater. United Voices noted that conspiracy theories about Muslims “imposing Sharia” on Western societies have preceded and inspired some of the deadliest anti-Muslim attacks in recent history — including the Christchurch mosque massacres in New Zealand, the Norway mass shooting and bombing carried out by Anders Breivik, and ongoing attacks on mosques across the United Kingdom.
“From America to the United Kingdom, most people are not falling for this again,” United Voices said. “They want their governments to stop cracking down on peaceful protests, censoring social media, threatening free speech, and funding the killing of civilians — all to protect a government that has been found by a UN commission to be committing genocide.”
United Voices is calling on media outlets, elected officials, and public figures to stop treating baseless anti-Muslim conspiracy theories as legitimate political speech — and to name them for what they are: incitement dressed up as policy debate.
Trump’s ‘Sharia Law in London’ Claim at the UN Is Fearmongering — and It Has a Body Count
United Voices is rejecting President Donald Trump’s claim, made from the podium of the United Nations General Assembly, that London “wants to go to Sharia law” — calling it a fabricated conspiracy theory with no factual basis and a clear political purpose: to distract Western audiences from U.S. support for the ongoing killing in Gaza.
Speaking at the UN, Trump said of London: “You have a terrible mayor, terrible, terrible mayor, and it’s been so changed, so changed. Now they want to go to Sharia law, but you’re in a different country. You can’t do that.” He offered no source for the claim. A spokesperson for London Mayor Sadiq Khan responded: “We are not going to dignify his appalling and bigoted comments with a response.”
“The claim that London — a city dominated by the political left, in a country run by a secular government — is somehow moving toward Islamic law is not a policy argument. It is a deliberate lie,” United Voices said. “And it is being deployed at exactly the moment when Western governments need their publics looking anywhere but at Gaza.”
United Voices pointed to reporting showing that the Israeli foreign ministry commissioned polling in the months before this surge in anti-Muslim rhetoric — polling that found stoking fear of Muslims and Islamic law was the most effective strategy for distracting Western audiences from the Gaza genocide. The timing of the fearmongering, from Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s false claims about signing “Sharia law bans” to Trump’s UN remarks, is not a coincidence.
This rhetoric is not harmless political theater. United Voices noted that conspiracy theories about Muslims “imposing Sharia” on Western societies have preceded and inspired some of the deadliest anti-Muslim attacks in recent history — including the Christchurch mosque massacres in New Zealand, the Norway mass shooting and bombing carried out by Anders Breivik, and ongoing attacks on mosques across the United Kingdom.
“From America to the United Kingdom, most people are not falling for this again,” United Voices said. “They want their governments to stop cracking down on peaceful protests, censoring social media, threatening free speech, and funding the killing of civilians — all to protect a government that has been found by a UN commission to be committing genocide.”
United Voices is calling on media outlets, elected officials, and public figures to stop treating baseless anti-Muslim conspiracy theories as legitimate political speech — and to name them for what they are: incitement dressed up as policy debate.