Council staff in North Yorkshire were told the Virgin Mary “wore a hijab” during a taxpayer-funded presentation aimed at tackling Islamophobia. The claim was made during a Project Unity training session delivered to North Yorkshire council staff, with the programme designed to address concerns that Muslim beliefs are incompatible with British values.
Claims in the Presentation
The presentation also told attendees that “Jesus grew a beard”, drawing a comparison between Christianity and Islamic guidance for Muslim men. Another slide reportedly claimed that “the hijab was prevalent in the UK only 100 years ago”, with images of shawls worn in early 20th-century Britain used to illustrate the point. The garments pictured were not connected to Islam.
The claims have prompted questions over material being delivered to public sector workers as part of counter-extremism and anti-Islamophobia training. Project Unity has also been delivered to students, police officers and civil servants involved in the Prevent programme, according to The Telegraph.
Session Details and Funding
The session was delivered by Abbas Najib, a former police officer who is chief executive of Better Communities Bradford, the charity behind Project Unity. Mary lived roughly six centuries before the emergence of Islam, although as a Jewish woman in first-century Judea she may have worn a head covering. Later Christian artwork frequently depicts the Virgin Mary wearing a veil or shawl.
The presentation also included material defending Sharia law, with one slide stating: “Sharia is not a foreign threat. It is a moral tradition – like any other – shaped by faith, reason and a commitment to human dignity.” Another said Islamic practice required that “children cannot be struck on the face, cannot be marked, and must freely consent to marriage”.
Project Unity material also described political demonstrations supporting Palestinians as “protesting genocide”. The programme has received £490,000 in public funding from the National Lottery Communities Fund since 2019, including £35,000 specifically for the rollout of Project Unity.
Scrutiny and Response
The training came under scrutiny after footage emerged of a Project Unity-based talk given at a North Yorkshire Police hate crime conference last year. The force stressed that the session was not part of its formal training programme and was not delivered by a police employee.
During that presentation, Mr Najib compared comments made by Nigel Farage with a racially aggravated offence and asked delegates to consider the “harm” caused by remarks about Islam and its compatibility with British values. Mr Najib said: “Sitting in a national news studio and saying ‘Jews hate Britain’, he’d be locked up before he left the studio – and too right, too.” He also criticised descriptions of pro-Palestinian demonstrations as “hate marches”, referring to comments by Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick, both of whom have since become Reform MPs.
Mr Najib defended the programme, saying: “Project Unity exists to reduce anti-Muslim hostility and to strengthen trust between communities. In my view, generalisations of that kind about an entire faith community are Islamophobic and fuel anti-Muslim hostility. I asked delegates to consider how the same claim would be treated if it were made about Jewish people.” He added: “Every community in Britain deserves the same protection from hatred.”
