There is no tidier way to say it: 74 votes to 73 is as close to a coin toss as a referendum gets, and that arithmetic is the real headline here, not which side crossed the line first. What makes the deadlock more striking is that the most-respected argument on the page was unambiguously for the ban — a Yes voter's case that "Islam goes against all that is British, it goes against all that is religious, it goes against all that is law and all that is true. It is an evil cult" drew the floor's heaviest single endorsement, and other high-scoring Yes opinions followed the same line, framing the issue as cultural incompatibility ("this is not a race issue, this is a cultural issue") and, repeatedly, as a threat to women.
The No side, working from a smaller and more scattered set of opinions, rarely met that rhetoric head-on and instead argued procedure and principle. One voter's objection was blunt — "you can't ban a religion, but more scrutiny and control should be applied" — echoed by another who preferred banning "religion of all shapes & colours... from public life" rather than singling out one faith, and by a third invoking the Human Rights Act directly: preventing someone practising their religion "goes against" it. Where Yes voters spoke of civilisational danger, No voters spoke of law, consistency and the practical impossibility of the proposal — the two camps largely talked past rather than to each other.
The result lands the ban question exactly where Britain's post-2016 politics has left so many identity and religion debates: unresolved in principle, contested in law, and shadowed by real anxieties — Rotherham, Islamist terrorism, Sharia demands — that no single vote settles. A near-even split on whether to ban a religion outright, in a country that still calls itself liberal and pluralist, is itself the finding.
That the floor's sharpest line called for prohibition and the floor's final tally said no by the width of a single ballot is not a contradiction to explain away — it is the story.
17 Opinions
Islam is no more inherently evil than Christianity or Judaism - all religion has no place in modern democracy, ESPECIALLY in political institutions. It’s inevitable that all religions will have radical movements within them, those are the problem - not the religion on the whole.
It’s a male dominated misogynistic medieval political movement- and the frightening thing is that it is rapidly gaining power. Look at how many dual nationality MPs and councillors there are. And which country they are from.
Islam is not a religion. It is a political movement for world domination with a faint whiff of a deity - probably the devil. It is evil and infectious. It has no place in Britain.
Don't ban it, but remove Sharia courts and strengthen laws against the kind of behaviour that forced a man alleged to have insulted the so called prophet underground in this country. I would also ban the burka, ban cousin marriage, and strengthen protections for women in islamic marriages.
In the UK yes, help islamist to relocate to an Islamic country. Make sure all family members are also sent as will already be radicalised, brainwashed into hating West,Christianity etc
No, you can't ban a religion, but more scrutiny and control should be applied. Take an example of Arab countries where some of Islamic organizations are banned (but allowed to act in the UK), like Muslim Brotherhood and aligned groups, Hizb ut-Tahrir, parts of Islamic Relief, various Salafi or Islamist advocacy groups that promote political Islam. Hate preachers like Anjem Choudary or Haitham al-Haddad - they will usually we linked to organisation that should be banned.
Islam is a clear and present danger to women.
I've voted NO simply because to ban one religion without banning all religions is not the British way.. Personally I'd suggest religion of all shapes & colours should be banned from public life, keeping it in religious places & private homes. There's no way in modern society, archaic beliefs should have any influence over a modern nations decisions. Britain should be a modern secular society with religion demoted to private places
More of a cult than an actual religion, it is entirely at odds with British and Western values. Even the concept of democracy is against Sharia law, which an alarming number of Mohammedans want implemented in the UK . Lebanon, Iran and Afghanistan were all relatively peaceful Liberal democracies before the cancer of Islam made them totalitarian hell holes. Many reference moderate Islam, but there is no moderate version of the hatred of non-believers in the Quran and Hadiths.
There's no hate like Christian love.