Those believing that they are using the World Cup to shine a bright torch on Qatar’s human rights record may well not put the same attention to other causes.

This week players and pundits were lining up to add their views and opinions on the World Cup.

The first and primary objection against Qatar is its position vis-a-vis LGBTQ rights.

This is, like most of the arguments posited by western intelligentsia, is non-sensible and inconsistent.

Qatar has an Islamic legal position enshrined within its legal structure. What do the critics propose? That only those parts of Islamic jurisprudence are allowed to be followed which do not clash with their subjective views of morality?

Can a Muslim travel to the UK and register his four marriages? Can individuals travel here and eat ‘cuisine’ such as dogs? What temerity to suggest that one ought to be able to dictate the legal framework and morality of a different country altogether?

What business is it of the west how Qatar elects to police the sexual behaviours of people it’s people? In the public sphere?

This does not impede upon what those individuals do in their private lives. Why would one believe that such protest is worthy of anything other than disdain and wry laughter?

Let us assume such protest is genuine (I don’t but let us entertain the hypothesis). Qatar won the bid in 2010. Spent 12 years building the infrastructure and you woke up to make a stink on the eve of the World Cup? Spare me your tears.

What is Russia’s track record on gay rights out of interest? Why did the BBC, ITV and associated hypocrites turn up to Moscow without a peep 4 years ago? Alex Scott wore a meaningless arm band to virtue signal but went picture posing with Putin in 2018 at the last World Cup?

Let’s move on to workers’ rights. A genuine issue of lax health and safety standards and very little care for the well-being of the migrant workers. Even one death would be one too many so the thousands are horrifying.

Greed and corporate behaviours are cancers upon society which no person with a conscience could support. There’s no issue on that point. The issue is the moral pedestal the west has afforded itself.

This country voted to impose an economic meltdown on itself just because the right wing of the Conservative Party wanted to enact its eternal fantasy and rid the UK of the restrictions placed upon it by EU membership, including (you guessed it) workers rights.

In the past year alone, how many strikes have been planned in this country?

Railways workers, nurses, teachers, barristers etc have all undertaken planned union action due to their basic rights being impeded. How many thousands of people die in this country due to poverty and its consequences?

Due to not being paid enough for their Labour, to be able to live a life of basic dignity? How many pensioners are likely to die this winter due to the greed of this country’s government and the energy companies who monopolise the market?

A recession is looming, people’s pay is being cut in real terms, the stark choice this winter is to eat or heat and the BBC have the gall to question other countries’ worker’s rights? A little introspection is intellectually healthy.

The Middle Eastern Royal families (propped up by western support for their own objectives) have been engaged in extensive business with the west already.

Why did these protestors not shout and scream at that reality? Qatar owns Harrods, London Stock Exchange and Paris Saint Germain and many other landmarks in the UK (including the Shard). They supply a huge chunk of the gas being bought by the UK.

So, we will see meaningful protest with the UK halting such purchases, right? I fear we all know the answer. Vacuous grandstanding is easy. Meaningful protest is not.

Let us concede the idea that Qatar is terrible.

What distinguishes Qatar from Dubai, where the same brain-dead protestors holiday? Qatar is not more ‘draconian’ than Saudi Arabia, to whom the British sell billions of dollars of weaponry.

Where’s your protests? Why don’t we hear these same protestors dare to criticise Israel’s genocide? Is the ability to sleep with the same sex more important than simply being allowed to exist as a human being, a ‘luxury’ not afforded the Palestinians?

I’m certain these crowds and protests will be just as loud and vociferous at the 2026 World Cup, hosted by the USA.

The greatest sponsor of terror in the world, the country responsible for the most death and destruction across the globe, a country which has more military bases across the world than most countries have military bases in their own lands and the ‘special friend’ of the UK. Aside from the obvious xenophobia, what distinguishes the USA?

That they allow gay people to engage in intercourse with the same sex? Or is it because they’re part of the ‘Christian’ west? Or because they’re the right complexion? What could distinguish their crimes.

This whole discussion is a cesspit of intellectual dwarfism and double standards.

Not a single argument stands up to scrutiny. Not a single individual making the argument can come across as genuine and sincere. This is the effect of mass propaganda - the people protest what they are told to protest by the media.