| Hat tip to Peter Burnet at Brothers Judd. |
There was nowhere in this country from which anyone should be excluded, Mr Reid said; nowhere that could be called exclusively Muslim. He was speaking just a couple of Tube stops from West Ham, close to the site for the 2012 Olympic stadium, where a huge row is about to erupt over plans to construct a mosque. However, this is not any old mosque built to serve the local community. It will be the largest place of worship in Europe, a gigantic three-storey Islamic centre, with schools and other facilities, able to hold at least 40,000 worshippers and up to 70,000 if necessary.
It will be called the London Markaz and it is intended to be a significant Islamic landmark whose prominence and stature will be enhanced by its proximity to the Olympic site. When television viewers around the world see aerial views of the stadium during the opening ceremony in six years' time, the most prominent religious building in the camera shot will not be one of the city's iconic churches that have shaped the nation's history, such as St Paul's Cathedral or Westminster Abbey, but the mega-mosque.