The Muslim firebrand kicked out of France says it couldn’t happen in Britain. Too right, guv!

THE Muslim preacher who was dragged screaming and kicking out of France told the Daily Mail’s David Jones: It would never happen in Britain.

You can say that again, old son. Imam Mahjoub Mahjoubi was deported to Tunisia shortly after delivering a sermon trashing the French flag and allegedly stirring up hatred against Jews and women.

Fifteen police officers arrested him at his home near Avignon. eight hours later he was on the first plane out.

Not so much au revoir as adieu. Missing you already.

Four decades after arriving in France he was back in the land of his birth, reflecting on the reasons for his removal and pleading his innocence.

According to Mahjoubi, he was expelled for an accidental reference to the Tricolore — the French national flag — in a speech calling on Muslims to unite. When he described it as ‘gangrene’ and ‘Satanic in the eyes of Allah’, it was a ‘slip of the tongue’, he protests.

Well, that’s his version and he’s sticking to it. Respected Muslim scholars who have read his speech insist there were passages likely to have heightened tensions with the Jewish community and incite discrimination against women.

Further details need not detain us. All you need to know is that under a new French Immigration Act he was issued with an immediate deportation order and bundled on to the next available flight to Tunis.

Job done.

‘ It’s such an injustice,’ he complained to Jones. ‘They have thrown me out of the country I have lived in for 40 years. A country I love.’ (A country he loves so much that after living there for four decades he still hadn’t bothered applying for citizenship.)

‘They would never do this to an imam in england. A minister wouldn’t be allowed to throw me out. I’d have the chance to defend myself in court.’

Too true. he’s bang on the money. What he allegedly said is pretty mild compared to some of the hatred routinely spewed out of radical mosques in Britain.

Unlike the French, who jealously guard their national identity and secular traditions, we have bent over backwards, forwards and sideways to accommodate Islamist extremists.

In Britain, Imam Mahjoubi could stand in Parliament Square preaching holy war, intifada and death to the Jews, while burning a Union Jack, without having to worry about having his collar felt.

He’D probably be invited to become an adviser on ‘ community relations’ to the Metropolitan Police, helping to define the theological meaning of the word ‘jihad’.

In the unlikely event of him actually being nicked, there would be legions of yuman rites lawyers queueing up to defend him on legal aid.

The case would drag on for years, appeal after appeal after appeal. The chances of him being returned to Tunisia would be less than zero. his deportation would be blocked by the house of Lords and the Supreme Court, both of which would designate Tunisia — like Rwanda — not a ‘safe’ country.

Never mind Tunisia, we won’t even deport failed asylum seekers back to France.

If by some miracle he was eventually put on a plane, a revolt by dopey, Guardian- reading passengers would prevent it taking off — just as they stopped a convicted Somali rapist being deported not so long ago.

Meanwhile, Mahjoubi and his extended family would have been moved from the nearest hilton hotel into a council house and lavished with benefits.

his case would be a cause celebre on the BBC, where he would be interviewed sympathetically on the Today programme and would probably end up starring on Strictly.

Rishi Sunak may at last be promising tough new sanctions against extremists tearing apart society. But, trust me, it ain’t gonna happen.

Fine words butter no parsnips, as the old saying goes. Any attempt to introduce a Frenchstyle immigration Bill would either flounder in Parliament or be struck down by the judges.

even if it did become law, the police would refuse to enforce it — just as they give a free pass to hatemongers on the streets of London and our other cities.

And anyway, it’s a dead cert that our next Prime Minister is going to be Keir Starmer, a lifelong, Left- wing yuman rites lawyer, who will roll out the red carpet for Islamist extremists and has opposed every attempt by the Conservatives to rid us of migrants who have no right to be here and threaten our way of life.

For now, Imam Mahjoubi may be banned from France, but his best bet — if he doesn’t want to be exiled in Tunisia — would be to make his way to the UK, where he’d be welcomed with open arms with no prospect of ever being deported.

Makes you proud to be British.

THE animal rights charity Peta claims to have ‘re-homed’ in the West Country three pigeons liberated from the Sandringham royal estate. They’d better hope they’re not homing pigeons, otherwise by the time you read this the birds will already be back in Norfolk.