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.
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