The Queen forced to wear a burkha and Buckingham Palace turned into a mosque - that was the vision of Britain under Sharia law proposed by a Muslim firebrand yesterday.
Preacher of hate Anjem Choudary even showed mocked-up photographs of the palace sporting a golden dome and Nelson's Column as a minaret.
He was speaking ahead of a central London demonstration that was planned for today. However the event was today cancelled amid fears it would have descended into violence.
A poster from Muslim group Al-Muhajiroun showing how they would change Buckingham Palace into a mosque
Scotland Yard said it would now be contacting organisers of a wave of counter-protests in central London and Leeds, West Yorkshire, to inform them of the decision.
Choudary, leader of the radical Islamic sect Al Muhajiroun, said organisers Islam4UK had been forced to cancel the planned march from the House of Commons to Trafalgar Square because of security concerns.
But he added a meeting of supporters of sharia law would still take place at an undisclosed location later today.
The Islamic Society of Britain, which was planning to join other organisations in staging a 'dignified, non-violent' counter-demonstration at Piccadilly Circus, said it would not now take place.
A spokesman said: 'There's no protest so we won't be holding a counter-demonstration. It's a great success that pressure from all sections of the community, including Muslims, has resulted in the Muhajiroun and the hot-heads rethinking their position. They realised very few people would turn up to support them and they would attract only very negative publicity. Old-fashioned pressure has worked.'
The Islamic Society of Britain said of Choudary and Al Muhajiroun, : '99.999 per cent of Muslims despise these people.'
British Head of the Muslim group Anjem Choudary speaks to media in Westminster today to announce plans to force the Queen to wear a burkha
Police had worked avoid a clash between moderate Muslim groups and far-right mobs who have organised rival demonstrations.
Choudary,a cleric and self-styled judge of the Sharia court of the UK, claimed: 'The amount of threats we have received has been phenomenal. Bomb threats, death threats, we have received hundreds of them from people saying they are going to come and confront us.'
He said: 'We hope to eradicate man-made law from Britain and the world. We call upon Gordon Brown to implement Sharia law and we call upon the Queen to give up playing God. There is only one supreme being. When Sharia law is implemented, maybe in 10 or 15 years' time, she would be expected like all women in Britain to be covered from head to toe, only revealing her face and hands.'
If Her Majesty refused, he said she would be 'punished' according to Sharia law.
Choudary's sidekick Abu Rumaysahl added: 'Buckingham Palace would become a mosque and play a central role in society.'
At a press conference yesterday to outline their vision, Choudary brought in fellow hate cleric Omar Bakri to preach by speaker phone from his exile in Lebanon.
Bakri, banned from Britain four years ago, launched an astonishing diatribe lasting half an hour in which he called for jihad, saying: 'We do not want ourselves to be judged by a man-made law. The struggle for Islam is a struggle worth dying for. Islam must be defended by the sword.'
Choudary and his extremist group want a legal system in which adulterers and homosexuals would be stoned to death and thieves have their hands chopped off.
He said: 'Thieves would have various warnings first, and only in cases where he has stolen more than £20 of non-perishable goods from a private house would his hand be chopped off.
'We are being realistic, we know it could take time to implement, but it is a fact that in Britain Muslims are predicted to outnumber practising Christians, in terms of going to places of worship, by 2015.'
Choudary, who was not wearing a Remembrance Day poppy, said he did not support the sacrifices of British soldiers. He said: 'We are not allowed to feel sorry for those wars fought for land which served no purpose. Only wars in defence of Allah or your family or property are just wars.'
But moderate Muslim groups accused Choudary of running scared of engaging with them. Tehmina Kazi, director of British Muslims for Secular Democracy, said: 'It sounds like pure cowardice. He is afraid of engaging with ordinary patriotic British Muslims who have a sense of tolerance and fair play.
'We stand up for mainstream Muslims who see no conflict between their religion and being British. Anjem Choudary tries to be as provocative as possible, and everything he says undermines community cohesion and is a slap in the face to every patriotic British person.'
Although Choudary refused to say so, penalties under Sharia law for not wearing a burqa include a woman being repeatedly lashed with a stick or a cable.
Tory MP Patrick Mercer branded Choudary's plans 'extremely distasteful' and added: 'If anyone thinks those views are a step forward they are seriously deluded. They are repellent and repulsive.'
