Pickthall House

Trade ○ Diplomacy ○ Cohesion

Pickthall House provides policy research centred around strategies for building robustness and resilience in a changing global order. Our work focusses on the need to:

Blog Posts

On the appropriation of ‘British Values’

Pickthall House believes that political discourse on the topic of national identity is very welcome. However, we strongly reject unsubstantiated allegations of disloyalty to Britain, or rejection of British values, levelled against citizens for their political beliefs. Pickthall House believes that most political opinions can...

Response to Michael Gove’s speech on Anti-Semitism

The Communities Secretary Michael Gove’s recent speech on anti-semitism is misleading and harmful to community relations. Naturally, Pickthall House unreservedly condemns prejudice and discrimination against Jews, as well as both the horrific attacks of October 7th and the horrific killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza...

Tolerance cuts both ways

Religious freedom is worth nothing if it does include the right to hold unpopular beliefs — including unpopular beliefs about gender and sexuality. With the recent resignation of Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf, leadership hopeful Kate Forbes has come under renewed scrutiny for her religious...

On the Michaela Prayer Ban

Pickthall is concerned by the approach taken by Michaela school, which has a 50% Muslim pupil population, in banning prayer rituals, and sees this as a threat to religious liberty, British secularism and positive integration. A Muslim pupil at the school mounted a High Court challenge...

What’s wrong with “dual loyalties”?

Pickthall condemns the Board of Deputies of British Jews’ recent call for the Conservatives to sack Sir Alan Duncan for his comments on Israel, and defends the rights of all British citizens to have, and to scrutinise, so-called “dual loyalties”. It should be remembered that...

White Papers

At the Tropical Crossroads

The Brexit vote was largely predicated on the re-establishment of national sovereignty. How much has Britain accomplished in the 3 years since leaving the EU? It may well be that we need to look further afield.The cornerstone of good strategy is a clear sense of...

Britain and the Arab-Israel Conflict

Britain was a crucial partner in the establishment of the State of Israel. Since then, it has pursued a foreign policy in the Middle East that positions Israel as an important strategic ally. In this paper, Pickthall House argues that Britain's recent substantive support for...