The first thing to say is that the ordinary criminal law in this country, the Human Rights Act, the Children's Act, all of the laws of the country take precedence, but what I'm also saying is that within the context of a secular country, which Britain now kind of is, or at least a country which purports to be relatively equal between religions, there should be some scope for allowing faith communities to govern themselves - subject to it being consensual and subject to everyone's human rights being observed.

I think it's important to understand Shari'a to be rooted in history - what we know about the history and what we don't know about the history. So then, if people want to argue, at least they're arguing from the same point and we know what we know, and we know what we don't know.

I think there's a real danger that Islamophobia can actually be a cover for something far more malign. I don't want to sound like a spokesman for the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal but I am a supporter of autonomy for religious communities and for non-discrimination.

I work in the human rights field and there are serious conflicts between certain interpretations of Islamic law and human rights. That's something which I don't make any bones about at all, it's something which I think is very important for everyone to address, including the Muslim community, and many Muslims are addressing that issue.

Whereas a man is entitled to marry three more times and that fosters great abuse, even scholars accept that. So certainly since the 1980s Shari'a courts have been established and they allow for women to go to them and they basically grant them annulment. It's not a civil divorce, they don't have the right to grant alimony or maintenance or custody.

People are coupling and decoupling all the time in Great Britain. The fact that Muslims choose to precede it with a certain formula of words, shouldn't bar them from anything. But, no one's saying that polygamy should be institutionalized in this country. That Muslim's uniquely should be allowed to have two or three or four marriages.

In 1979, you had the revolution in Iran. You had the Hudood Ordinances in Pakistan, which are the laws that are notoriously used against women, which are theoretically used against thieves although they're never carried out - an actual amputation or an actual stoning. The blasphemy laws, again, never actually carried out, though they're there, heavy with menace on the statute books.