Membership of Angela Rayner’s new ‘Islamophobia’ working group has been announced. The group has been set up ‘to provide government with a working definition of Anti-Muslim Hatred/Islamophobia which is reflective of a wide range of perspectives and priorities of British Muslims’. The Labour party, the mayor of London and many Labour-led councils previously adopted the contested all-party-parliamentary group (APPG) definition, but Keir Starmer’s government distanced itself from the definition last year, confirming it wasn’t ‘in line’ with the Equality Act 2010, due to its conflation of race and religion. Islamophobia, the definition claimed, was a ‘type of racism’.
It remains to be seen if Rayner’s new group will place a robust emphasis on free speech, not least the ability to freely criticise religion, but also openly discuss subjects such as grooming gangs. Of course, defining ‘anti-Muslim’ hatred makes more sense than the vague catch-all term (and unsolicited mental health diagnosis) ‘Islamophobia’. But for now the government are opting to interchangeably use both terms, and this, we are told, will be a non-statutory definition.
Read through the group’s three-page ‘terms of reference’ document and you notice that the group has an alarming lack of inclusivity and transparency. Members include crossbench peer and CEO of Muslim Women’s Network UK Baroness Gohir (the force behind Muslim Heritage Month) and Akeela Ahmed, co-chair of the new British Muslim Network. They are among those tasked with giving advice to the deputy prime minister to, ‘understand and define unacceptable treatment, prejudice, discrimination and hate targeting Muslims or anyone perceived to be Muslim’.
Notably, the terms of reference also mention that ‘communities mistakenly identified as Muslim’ are harmed by Islamophobia. It specifically refers to Sikh, Jain, Buddhist and Hindu communities, but why is there no representative from these faiths among the members? Indeed, Coptic Christians and Rastafarians suffer too. Sikhs in particular face the brunt of backlash following jihadist attacks, where ignorant bigots conflate the Sikh turban (dastaar) and beard with the attire of Islamic extremists like Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.
The first person killed in retribution for 9/11 in the US was a Sikh gas station owner, Balbir Singh Sodhi. The first place of worship attacked following the 7/7 London bombings was a gurdwara in Kent. In 2015, a member of neo-Nazi group National Action attempted to behead a Sikh dentist in Wales in ‘revenge’ for Lee Rigby. Annoyingly, BBC Newsnight referred to the attack as ‘Islamophobic’ with no mention of the victim’s actual heritage. In fact, Sikhs are targeted by lunatics from the far-right and Islamic extremists – so you’d think the government would at least give them a say in advising on a new definition which explicitly captures hatred against them.
Another problem is the lack of transparency in Rayner’s new group. The group has six months to come up with a definition. Membership, including that of the chair, who is former Conservative attorney general Dominic Grieve KC, is to be reviewed by ministers at the end of the six-month period, after which they will ‘confirm next steps’. (Notably, Grieve provided a glowing foreward to the report which launched the contested APPG definition). Remarkably, we will never know what the group have discussed during their time in post, because they are limited to ‘provide private advice by internal consideration by ministers only’. ‘The work of the Group will not be made public,’ the government says.
Furthermore, the government emphasises, ‘the Group does not speak on behalf of HMG’. So, in other words, a new definition of ‘Islamophobia/anti-Muslim’ hatred (we don’t know which one just yet) will essentially be devised in secret. In the end, a non-statutory definition is likely to open the floodgates for the reporting of more ‘hate speech’, not least the recording of Orwellian non-crime-hate incidents – which have been absurdly recorded against trivial incidents, such as a pair of soiled underpants hanging on a washing line.
Stephen Evans, chief executive officer of the National Secular Society told me:
It is concerning that the terms of reference suggest that all advice from the working group will remain private for ministers, with no public disclosure of recommendations. This lack of transparency hinders essential scrutiny of the group’s approach, creating a significant democratic deficit in the policy-making process.
Evans is of course right. The existing approach flies in the face of the concept of open government and the proposed lack of civic engagement risks further eroding public trust. Hate crime against Muslims must be tackled, but the public deserves transparency, especially when our right to openly discuss religion may well be compromised.
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