Karim, King of England

by Baz Wade

  “What can you tell us about the Trident missile that was fired at a Tesco superstore in Burnley, Prime Minister?” asked a Daily Mail reporter.

  “Only that the people of Paisley will be relieved we shan’t be retaliating,” he replied with a grin. “They will be wiser too in the knowledge that their country’s nuclear arsenal is hardly safe and effective in the hands of those they elected to be in charge.”

  The broadcast again reverted to Burnley where local residents were crying and shouting their outrage to the camera as Sheikh’s reporter was interviewing them. By some miracle the superstore was closed for a refit and the only casualties were 3 shopfitters enjoying a tea break and 3 trespassing teenagers intent on a looting spree.

  There was now something else on Ibrahim’s mind.

  “Forgive my ignorance, Andy,” asked Ibrahim, “but what was meant by that banner outside Bradford City Hall – about another civil war?”

  “My colleague Harry can help with that I expect.”

  “In 1641 King Charles I shut down Parliament and they went to war,” Harry said.

  “How did it turn out?”

  “The king lost,” Harry continued. “Not just the war but his head too.”

  Ibrahim saw Queen Clarissa wince.

  “I fear for my husband if this conflict turns out like that one,” she shuddered, “even if he survives his capture now.”

  Seeing the Queen of England looking scruffy and strained on the evening news had an effect on Kirsty she didn’t expect. Although highly critical of British royalty she was surprised at her feelings of pity for the woman. James might be a self-opinionated prat but he was still Clarissa’s husband who she had waited years to claim as her own. Now he was still absent. When asked by the Star Media reporter why she thought she had been released but not him, Clarissa just expressed her dismay, offering no explanation.

  “She must have been given a job by the caliphate people,” was Karim’s sceptical observation. “They released her to persuade the Government to do something for them before they are prepared to release the King.”

  The next news bulletin gave some foundation to Karim’s suspicions. In talks between the Government and Bradford City Council, the Home Secretary had agreed a compromise whereby the police would allow council business to resume, provided due tax was passed to the Treasury. This was in return for the Government preparing a bill so that all courts within the jurisdiction of Bradford City Council would be administered according to Sharia Law.

  “Do I really want to be King?” said Karim. “I’m happy as I am, with you, and rocking the world for a good cause. So they love me in Scotland. Well, big deal. The Scots aren’t part of the UK now. I’d be more than happy being a journalist or charity worker.”

  “But you’ve got a huge following down here too. English areas opposing Smithson’s emergency rule are holding you up as a poster boy.” Kirsty paused to ponder then smiled. “If we ever have an election again, the Greens are going to have a field day.”

  Kirsty and Karim were on their way back to Leeds after playing a gig in Manchester, followed by a midnight meal to celebrate Kirsty’s birthday. It was now 2 a.m, raining, and they were tired. Karim was glad there was very little traffic, though a white van seemed to be keeping them close company after leaving the restaurant. As they drove up the slip road onto the M62, they were startled by the van pulling past them at speed, to disappear quickly into the gloom ahead. “Was there a need for that?” grumbled Kirsty. “Oh well,” replied Karim, “keep talking will you, I need to stay awake.”

  It wasn’t Karim who first noticed the figure through the rain, some 200 yards ahead of them. “Slow down, Karim,” Kirsty yelled. “Look,” she pointed. “He’s obviously drunk, with no idea where he is..”

  Karim saw the man staggering hazardously across the motorway and immediately pulled onto the hard shoulder. There was no other traffic going in the same direction so he leapt out and pulled the man into their car. He was wearing no coat, just a tracksuit and a blindfold. His hands were tied behind his back.

  Tearing off the blindfold, the two of them stared at their charge in disbelief. The King of England, unmistakable despite his long bedraggled hair and a beard, looked from one to the other before addressing Karim.

  “You… I recognise you… not one of my captors … no.”

  “My name is Karim. Are you his Royal Highness the King?”

  “I am.” King James paused. “If you are the Karim I think you are from the pictures I have seen in the newspapers, how extraordinary that I should be in the car of my first wife’s second son.”

  Karim thought quickly. “I suspect it was intended that we would be the first to see you. You’re not wet through so I assume you were not on the motorway for long.”

  “No, just a matter of minutes.”

  “Pushed out of a white van bound and blindfolded so you would be found by the first car that was behind. I get it.”

  “Does that mean you are part of my captors’ plan to carry out their designs or can I assume I am safe with you?”

  “You are safe. We have no connection with jihadis and don’t support their agenda. Where would you like us to take you?”

  “To the Queen, if you would,” said King James. “I trust she is safe?”

  “Yes,” answered Kirsty. “She is at St James’s Palace.”

  “Then please, take me there.”

  “It is nearly 3 a.m, sir,” said Karim as he started the engine, “and we are in Yorkshire.”

  “Then please, if you have a phone, would you let me call her?”

  “Of course,” replied Kirsty, handing him her iphone. Realising he couldn’t use his hands since she had nothing to cut his ties, she asked him for the number which she typed in. The number connected but there was no answer.

  “She’ll be asleep, sir. I suggest you come with us. We are staying at the Hilton in Leeds. I’m sure there won’t be any problem.”

  “That’s kind of you, er..”

  “Kirsty is my name, sir. We are staying there courtesy of Andy Sheikh who has been protecting Karim since he made public his identity. We were advised to leave London as it is not safe for him there.”

  “I see. Well, I cannot very well walk into a hotel with my hands bound. Haven’t you got something to cut the ties?”

  “No, sorry.”

  “Then I’d be grateful if you could take me to the nearest police station.”

  Kirsty logged on to her phone’s search engine. “So you are happy to sleep in a cell?” asked Karim.

  The king laughed. “I shall ask them to take me to York. I will stay at Bishopthorpe Palace where the Archbishop will hopefully restore my determination to do what is right for the country. Then I will be fit to brief the Prime Minister.”

  “What will you tell him?”

  “My captors told me he is passing legislation to establish Sharia Law as an option in cities such as Bradford. How appalling. I don’t recall seeing that in his party’s manifesto.”

  “I believe it was the condition of your release, sir, ” said Karim.

  “Well we can’t have that. The terrorists will have won.”

  “We already don’t have democracy under the Conservatives.”

  “You mean because he banned the Muslim Party? But they are the people who kidnapped me.”

  “No, sir. They are your best bet as a firewall against the extremists who want a caliphate regardless of the will of the people.”

  “Take this exit, Karim,” said Kirsty. “There is a police station half a mile from the first roundabout.”

  In no more than a couple of minutes, they were pulling up outside.

  “Do you mind if we don’t come in?” said Karim. “It would be too much if I was recognised too. The press would no doubt think I kidnapped you. There would be a feeding frenzy.”


  King James smiled as he got out of the car. “Thank you for rescuing me. I hope I can return the favour and we can spend time together in less troubled times. Your mother would have wanted that I am sure.”

  10

  It was late next morning when Karim’s phone serenaded him out of a deep slumber.

  “Hot news just going out on Star Media.” Andy Sheikh’s voice was supercharged with excitement. “King James has been released by his jihadi captors. Can you get to my office by 4pm?”

  Karim yawned deeply. “I know. It was Kirsty and I who found him wandering on the motorway last night.”

  “What?” Sheikh sounded wounded. “And you didn’t think to phone me?”

  “We were too tired, I’m sorry, Andy.”

  “For crying out loud, there is a story here. I could run the headline ‘King brought to safety by his illegitimate “stepson.”’ It will give you all the credibility you will need with our opponents.”

  “Nobody is going to believe that of all the motorists on the motorway it was me who stopped for him,” replied Karim testily. Still tired, he didn’t bother to hide his impatience. “Anyway, why do you want me to come to your office?”

  “I’ve got someone coming to see me who wants you to be here too.”

  “Who?”

  “Your law tutor, Lena Khan.”

  Karim did not reply immediately. Andy Sheikh was unsure if this meant disapproval or that he was just computing the possible reasons for Lena’s request.

  “Why should I come?”

  “Because she wants the Labour Party to join forces again with Ibrahim’s party and by implication back your claim to the throne.”

  Karim was not in the mood for being groomed to be Head of State but was curious as to the political players he might have to work with.

  “What influence can she bring to bear on Labour’s policy?”

  “Dave Berriman is going to resign due to ill-health,” replied the media mogul. “There’s going to be a leadership contest in the Labour Party and she wants to go for it.”

  The daughter of a wealthy Pakistani landowner, Lena Khan had come to Britain as an Oxford law student. During the 1980s, she had risen to prominence as a barrister successfully defending left wing activists against deportation to Chile and other Latin American dictatorships. She had become a protégé of Tariq Ali, leading light of the International Marxist Group (IMG). When the IMG infiltrated the Labour Party, she was smart enough to rise above the factionalisation the IMG fell victim to as a result of the miners’ strike. Nor was she too closely identified with New Labour when that brand of left wing politics had turned stale. It was as though her political career was following the example of the leader of the Chinese Communist Party who was careful to offend no-one, because her rise to a place on Labour’s NEC was uncontroversial and apparently preordained.

  It was realising Labour wouldn’t be fit for government again for several years after New Labour was defeated in 2010 that Ms Khan took a sabbatical academic post at SOAS. Here she made a strong impression on a young student with a keen social and political conscience. A course in the law of international relations was part of Karim’s degree. After Sheikh rang off, Karim started to wonder what her approach to him might be.

  While a student at SOAS, Karim had been incensed about Israeli treatment of its Palestinian neighbours to the point that he became a fellow traveller of Hezbollah; as had Dave Berriman it seemed, a friend of Hamas too as the Tories didn’t cease to remind him. Did Lena Khan take the same view? He thought it unlikely she would excuse the shelling of Israeli civilians from across the Lebanese border. He remembered an essay he wrote challenging the purpose of the UN which had allowed the massacre of the Muslim population of Srebrenica under its watch, failed to implement its resolutions against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and also failed to stop the US and UK going to war against Saddam without a UN mandate. Ms Khan gave him a good mark for his logic and use of supporting material but left a comment in red on his paper:- What alternative would you offer the world if there’s no international guarantor of collective security like the United Nations? He had not offered a reply. Would she remember?

  He arrived in Sheikh’s office to find Lena Khan already there, wearing a business suit; no salwar-kameez on this occasion, the loose-fitting trouser suit that she wore the last time he had seen her in the SOAS lecture theatre a year or two before, with a draped scarf over her head. Lena Khan wasted no time in getting to the point.

  “Andy tells me Ibrahim is keen to have you on a Rainbow Alliance ticket as the royal figurehead. The symbol of British unity across faith and racial lines that divide our society.”

  “I’m flattered, Ms Khan. Ibrahim is a good man. I’m not clear though why you are setting me against my half-brother as a potential heir to the throne.”

  “From our contacts at the BBC,” Sheikh explained, “we gather there is evidence that the King and Queen are very hostile to Muslim political influence. Without a coalition of anti-Tory opinion, this country is going to see social breakdown. The King and Queen appear to be reactionary and partisan which is a toxic mix. Some people already want them to abdicate.”

  “I have a question for you Karim,” Lena said, “are you prepared to stand above the political fray as is expected of the royal family?”

  “In principle, yes.” Karim paused to take a sip of coffee from the mug in front of him, emblazoned with the caption ‘GOTCHA – only in The Sun’. “But you are assuming I want to be King. I don’t want to be considered as a candidate for monarch unless possibly the King and Prince of Wales abdicate. I’m happy just now supporting my partner, as she gigs around the country in support of good causes.”

  “Which makes you very popular in Scotland, I hear. You could be the catalyst for a repaired United Kingdom.”

  “Well I would support that.”

  “And Ibrahim too, a pluralist who advocates liberal values?”

  “I’m no jihadi if that is what you are implying.”

  “Being aware of your links in the past with groups supporting suicide bombing, I have long since wondered.”

  Karim went on the defensive. “You’re referring obviously to Hezbollah whom I went to meetings with during my student days but I have never promoted such behaviour. It is against the teaching of the Prophet.”

  “I’m asking because you will need to be prepared for the press opening cupboards where you may have left some skeletons.”

  “I will think about it. Let me speak to Ibrahim and I will let you know my decision.”

  “Don’t be long. To have any chance of winning the party leadership, I need to have a convincing strategy Labour will accept. And the Tories may call a general election now Scotland no longer have MPs to challenge them.”

  Still tired from the exertions of travelling back home the night before, Karim left the meeting. Lena confided her fears to Sheikh of joining forces with the Muslim Party to defeat Smithson.

  “Wasn’t Ibrahim a follower of Mawdudi?” she asked.

  “Yes. He inspired hundreds of young men when he started up the first Muslim political movement and advocated the establishment of Sharia Law.”

  “Mawdudi opposed women’s emancipation, didn’t he?”

  “True. Mawdudi may have drawn him into politics but Ibrahim’s always been a secularist. There are women in Ibrahim’s party. Ibrahim’s got a problem though. Saudi Arabia doesn’t just export oil. His party organisation is being infiltrated by Saudi-backed hardliners who want to limit women’s rights.”

  “Are these people jihadists too?”

  “Islamic State draws on Wahhabi doctrine so most likely yes.”

  “Then the Labour Party will want to hear Ibrahim is tackling this head-on.”

  “What makes it harder for Ibrahim is his party is facing a funding crisis. A large donation occasionally goes into their
coffers indirectly from the Saudi government. They will withhold funds unless the party supports Sharia law, for example.” Andy Sheikh paused. “A bit like the trade unions withholding funds if Labour doesn’t hold to their agenda.”

  “OK, point taken,” Lena winced. “But we really cannot have Saudi Arabia dictating terms if it serves to encourage jihadism.”

  “If Labour is to have any chance of returning to government, you will have to ally with Ibrahim.”

  “I agree but it’s a dilemma – a headache.”

  After pouring tea, the royal butler walked backwards to the door of the King’s drawing room and quietly closed it behind him. Smithson looked at the teapot he had left on the tray. How archaic the royal insignia looked now that the lion and the unicorn had parted company.

  “I’ve asked you to come because I fear for the direction this country has taken since I was kidnapped,” said the King. “It’s hard enough to stomach the loss of Scotland but what I won’t countenance is the establishment of Sharia Law in this country, Smithson.”

  The Prime Minister’s cup rattled in its saucer, as if in sympathy with his jangling nerves.

  “It is only as an option in certain towns in Yorkshire and Lancashire, your Majesty. With respect, you would not be here if I had refused the demand.”

  “It’s the thin end of the wedge, Smithson.”

  “But we have to repair relations with the Saudi government or we run the risk of falling out with OPEC, which they dominate. The economy won’t survive for long based on what we can extract from the North Sea.”

  “Repairing relations means giving in to their demand to reinstate Muslim Party MPs, I take it?”