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Spectator
2 days ago
- Politics
- Spectator
Kemi has fallen into the Islamophobia trap
Kemi Badenoch this weekend waded into the Islamophobia debate. In a public letter to Keir Starmer she urged the government to suspend the operations of its working group looking for a semi-official definition of Islamophobia. Unfortunately she then rather spoilt the effect by suggesting that the group needed to be supplemented by representatives of grooming gang victims, counter-terror experts and free speech activists. You can see why she did this. Nevertheless it could prove a bad miscalculation, and a missed opportunity to land a serious blow on Keir Starmer. The government is certainly vulnerable here. Its working group is pretty clearly a put-up job: ostensibly independent, it is expected to reach a predetermined conclusion which can then be rubber-stamped by ministers and ceremonially wheeled out to show how much it cares about Muslim voters. The appointment of super-wet ex-Tory Attorney-General Dominic Grieve as chair fools no one: Grieve himself wrote the foreword to the 2018 report from the APPG on British Muslims which first drew up the definition the government now wants enshrined. The whole affair is also a kick in the teeth for open government. Under its terms of reference, any advice the group provides is 'private for Ministers' and 'will not be made public.' And the members themselves are gagged for the duration: they must give 48 hours' notice to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government before any public comment they plan to make on any matter within the group's remit. Even if we forget the hole-in-corner tactics of the government, the proposal itself is a terrible one. Government has no business publicly defining particular opinions with the aim of directing state censure at those who adopt or publicise them; nor is there any acceptable reason why administrators or other authorities should be allowed to treat people differently because of their expressed (and lawfully held) political or religious views. In addition, despite the inevitable protestations that any definition of Islamophobia would be non-legally-binding, there is no doubt that it would in practice leech quickly into our law, for example by being taken into account in judicial review proceedings, prosecutions for public order or online speech offences, decisions by the police whether to arrest speakers for perceived religious offence, and so on. And, quite apart from this, even if it were right to protect faith sensibilities, there is absolutely no case for selecting any one religion, such as Islam, to the exclusion of others. (And yes, I will be consistent: anti-Semitism must be treated similarly. Acceptance by official bodies, such as the College of Policing, of the IHRA-sponsored definition of anti-Semitism, or any other one, must equally go the same way.) To be fair, Kemi does express some scepticism about whether we need a definition of Islamophobia at all. But what matters is, as they say, the optics. And for the average reader and viewer these are clear. Her message clearly comes across as an acceptance of the existence of the working group and a preparedness to work with it, albeit with input from new groups like free speech activists, grooming-gang survivors, and so on. This will unfortunately not go down well. No one who thinks seriously will be attracted by the idea that we should make policy on Islamophobia by putting delegates of umpteen warring factions and interest groups onto a government committee and hoping for the best. Moreover, the call for inclusion of grooming gang survivors has all the appearance (intended or otherwise) of identitarianism, bandwagon politics and a cynical pitch for votes. But there is an even more important point. When it comes to Islamophobia, the threat to Kemi comes not from Labour but from Reform. And, like them or not, Reform has a clear view. There has never been any doubt that Nigel Farage is against the whole idea of official definitions of things like Islamophobia, and for all the right reasons: free speech, administrative overreach, and so on. This view clearly has cut through. Just over a week ago, a pollster suggested that if Labour persisted with its ham-fisted Islamophobia operation, it could hand a 100-seat majority to Reform. Voters, especially those in the non-metropolitan constituencies that Kemi desperately needs to win over, remain deeply sceptical of the Tories precisely because they see them as Starmer-lite, as part of the old system, without clearly-stated principles. If Kemi comes out as anything other than wholly opposed to the Islamophobia definition, this jaundiced view will be confirmed in spades. Unless Kemi and the Tories really want this, they need to think again, and fast.
Daily Mail
21-07-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
If the rape gang scandal taught us anything, it's that we must be free to criticise ANY religion: MATT GOODWIN
Here's something truly shocking. Ten days after the Hamas terrorists murdered and raped 1,200 Jews in Israel, a radical preacher by the name of Shujauddin Sheikh stood up to speak to a gathering at the Karachi Press Club in . In his address – later broadcast via an Islamic radio station to British Muslims in the northern town of Bury – this rabble-rouser described Jews as 'the biggest enemies of humanity' and shared a number of anti-Semitic tropes.
Middle East Eye
14-07-2025
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Grooming gangs and Trojan Horse: The poisoned politics of Muslim integration
There has been a steady drumbeat, in right-wing and liberal media alike, about the failure of British Muslims to integrate. This drumbeat warns of self-segregated lives insulated from mainstream values. This is often fed by official reports that are occasioned by media "scares" and used to align public policy with media-driven concerns highlighting threats to public safety. Among the most potent of such concerns are those involving children and young people. On the one hand, there is the claimed risk of "radicalisation" and involvement in "Islamist" terrorism to which some young people may be vulnerable (because, we are told, of a deficit in "British values"). On the other hand, some Muslim men allegedly pose a threat to white girls through group-based sexual exploitation, or the activities of "grooming gangs" as recently set out in Baroness Casey's recent rapid review although the available data doesn't warrant that conclusion. Both issues generate a discourse directed at different responsible authorities – whether local government, social workers, or police – and their failure to act because of what they claim to be 'a fear of being thought 'racist''. This was a feature of the early reports (by Peter Clarke and Ian Kershaw) on the so-called Birmingham Trojan Horse affair, and was used as an explanation of why the perceived inappropriate demands of Muslim governors and teachers had been acceded to in the past. Decisive action followed, in the introduction of the Prevent duty in 2015 as a safeguarding measure and the requirement of all schools in England and Wales to 'promote fundamental British values', a controversial addition to the curriculum for its assumption that people not of a British background ("people of colour"), somehow did not naturally embody these values, when in fact research has shown the opposite to be the case. Surveys show increased suspicion toward Muslims and Islam, especially among middle class professionals responsible for implementing public policy The main social attitude surveys – such as those conducted on an annual basis by the National Centre for Social Research – have consistently shown that British Muslims were the group closest to the average of the nation as a whole in terms of adherence values deemed to be "fundamentally British". Despite this, the surveys show increased suspicion toward Muslims and Islam, especially among middle class and professional respondents responsible for implementing public policy. Now, "British values" are increasingly decried in favour of a new "cultural nationalism" drummed by Reform, with large sections of the Conservative party and those Labour politicians seeking to appeal to Reform voters. In the area of child sexual exploitation, fear of being called racist has also become a convenient excuse for past inaction. In the current media focus on "grooming gangs", for example, the focus is upon the ethnicity of the perpetrators (who should, of course, be prosecuted and punished with all the severity the law allows), rather than the victims, and, importantly, the root cause: the failures in care that underlie child sexual exploitation. As Baroness Casey set out, multiple reports on child sexual exploitation have identified systemic failures by responsible authorities without the recommended remedial action being taken. Despite this core highlight, the consistent call has been on identifying the ethnic and religious identity of the perpetrators. Systemic failures vs identity obsession Significantly, both issues – safeguarding children and young people from the risks of radicalisation, and safeguarding children and young people from sexual exploitation – fall under the responsibility of the Department for Education. This has been the case since the 2004 Children's Act, when local authority children's services departments were made responsible for child protection and schooling. The Police Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) published a report in 2011 to which the DfE responded with an "action plan", albeit, according to Baroness Casey, little came of it. Another report on group sexual exploitation was submitted to the DfE by the Children's Commissioner in 2012 and it was followed up by a comprehensive Ofsted report into children's services at a sample of five local authorities in November 2014. Trojan Horse: When 'facts' are contested, who decides the truth? Read More » There have been multiple reports since then with the last major report – that of Dame Alexis Jay in 2022 – stating that what was needed was action on previous recommendations on improving child protection, not a focus on the identity of the perpetrators. The Birmingham Trojan Horse affair involved accusations of extremism by parents and governors, and were directed at "successful" headteachers amid a claim of a "plot" to take over schools. However - and crucially - media reporting and the official reports neglected the fact that the only mechanism for taking over a school was through the government's flagship academies programme, where a "successful" school would be encouraged to leave local authority control and incorporate failing schools into a "multi-academy trust" and implement its policies for school improvement. The school at the centre of the affair - Park View - was identified by the DfE as just such an outstanding school that would absorb others. It was in fact, the same teachers who had improved it from a failing school over a remarkable period of four years prior to the alleged "plot", who lost their jobs despite the case against them collapsing. Despite the Prevent duty being introduced in 2015 as a direct response to the Trojan Horse affair, the following year, when professional misconduct cases against teachers were begun, it was accepted that no extremism was involved in the Trojan Horse affair. At least we must infer that to be the case; no charges of extremism were involved in any of the legal cases, notwithstanding the claims of the Clarke report and media reports. In fact, there were no instances where the practices of the schools in Park View Educational Trust (PVET) were in conflict with statutory requirements or guidelines. Indeed, all the evidence suggested otherwise – here I am referring firstly to the nature of the findings of fault in the court cases that did conclude, and, secondly, the fact that the primary set of cases against the senior leaders at PVET collapsed due to misconduct by lawyers for the government. Trojan Horse narrative Nonetheless, the government acceded to a moral panic about Muslim-led schools, despite (perhaps, because of) the situation in Birmingham being a direct consequence of its own policies on schooling. Whatever the reason, this laid down a pattern; the Trojan Horse affair became the emblem of government claims of a 'failure of multiculturalism'. An example of this is Dame Louise Casey's 2016 Review into Integration and Opportunity, which cited the affair and attributed the problems it had supposedly revealed, in particular to education leaders who acceded to the views of a minority of parents claiming to represent the school community: 'Many of the individuals involved deny the allegations against them and continue to this day to maintain they were acting in the best interests of pupils. We heard wider views in Birmingham that sought to underplay the seriousness of the issues or to deny the extent of the problem, portraying the whole episode as a conspiracy and the letter a fake. Professional misconduct and legal proceedings are underway against the individuals involved, so we will only have a complete picture when these conclude.' They did not conclude; the cases collapsed, and the DfE did not take up the call to relaunch them. It is easy to understand why they did not. They had been designed specifically to keep the Clarke inquiry and its evidence away from scrutiny. This would have revealed serious flaws in the inquiry, including a failure to disclose the role of the team at the DfE that was involved in managing the takeover of failing schools by Park View and, indeed, the expansion of Park View Educational Trust. I will return to Louise Casey, but this indicates a pattern: the setting down of a narrative that 'multiculturalism' and Muslim participation is associated with excess demands, and reluctance to counter them is identified as deriving from fear of being regarded as "racist". Why did the DfE not act as decisively to protect children at risk of sexual exploitation? While the government did act in the Trojan Horse affair, it did so by forcing Prevent into education - not just secondary and tertiary education, but also into nurseries and primary schools. It continues to ensnare thousands of innocent children and young people, with disproportionate numbers of Muslim children represented. At the same time, the government presented its action as "fearless" and 'without favour to 'group interests' or 'identity politics''. Systemic failures in child protection Why, then, did it not act in the same way with regard to the recommendations of reports on child exploitation? Significantly, the issues relate to local authority departments of children's service. Of course, since the financial crisis of 2008, local authorities have been under serious financial pressures and requirements to cut services. Children's services were also disrupted by the expansion of the academy schools programme. By 2014, around a quarter of primary schools and three-quarters of secondary schools had opted out of local authority control. This had the consequence of disrupting the relationships between child protection and schooling for many children. For example, most of the reports on group-based child sexual exploitation associate it with looked-after children going missing from their care provision and children missing from school. There was a major failure at the heart of government to take the needs of vulnerable children seriously, and to safeguard them from sexual exploitation There was a major failure in data-gathering and to act where problems were perceived. In other words, there was a major failure at the heart of government to take the needs of vulnerable children seriously, and to safeguard them from real risk of sexual exploitation. At the same time, overtly strenuous efforts were made to 'safeguard them' against spurious risks of 'radicalisation'. In this context, it is clear why the present government should have resisted a national inquiry into grooming gangs. Dame Louise Casey has declared that the topic should not be politicised and the focus should be on the victims. But then the answer would have been the rapid and full implementation of Dame Alexis Jay's recommendations. Instead, acceding to the call has reinforced the same false narratives about the integration of British Muslims. Dame Louise Casey already showed herself to be sympathetic to that narrative. In fact, her recent report contributes to it. If national politics and the policies that follow it are driven by a common disrespect of British Muslims and the child victims of group-based sexual exploitation, what kind of future are we creating?
Straits Times
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Straits Times
As Gaza crisis festers, will Muslim critics of British govt join forces with far-left?
– British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is barely one year in office and his popularity is sinking fast. But what Mr Starmer and his ruling centre-left Labour Party now fear most is the emergence of race politics in the shape of the potential rise of a new far-left political movement which will attract the support of Britain's sizeable Muslim community. The proposed new party is unlikely to be formally Muslim, let alone overtly Islamic in its ideology. But opinion polls indicate that it will count on strong backing from British Muslims, and this factor alone may herald the rise of dangerous sectarian arguments in the country. There are currently around four million Muslims in the United Kingdom. Due to the mass migration Britain experienced over the past few decades, their numbers are rising fast. Muslims accounted for less than 2 per cent of Britain's population in 1990 but now make up 6 per cent of the nation. This unusually rapid rise – numbers are up by around 40 per cent since 2011 – means that a good part of Britain's Muslim community are first-generation migrants and therefore both less likely to be fully integrated, and statistically more prone to consider their faith as their defining characteristic. But the more significant factor is that the overwhelming majority of the country's Muslims live in urban areas, so their impact on elections is often magnified because Britain's first-past-the-post electoral system – as it is in Singapore – rewards those who can concentrate their support in key areas. According to the latest electoral surveys, British Muslims account for a large share of the electorate in at least 50 out of the country's 650 constituencies, and probably can determine the elections in a further 20. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore ST will have Govt's 'full confidence and support' in its mission to stay relevant: PM Wong Singapore ST will aim to become an indispensable partner to S'pore's communities: Editor Jaime Ho Singapore Heartbeats & Headlines: ST's 180-year legacy comes to life in immersive exhibition Singapore Trusted news, smarter experience with new Straits Times website and app Singapore Man who killed 5-year-old daughter gets life sentence after he appeals against 35-year jail term Singapore Judge declines to void alleged sham marriage in S'pore, says it is for Parliament to decide Business OCBC CEO Helen Wong to retire on Dec 31; Tan Teck Long named successor Singapore More than 14,300 people checked during 7-week-long anti-crime ops Traditionally, most Muslim votes went to Labour; in the 2024 general election , all the 32 constituencies with the largest concentrations of Muslims went to Labour. But Labour's share of the Muslim vote is shrinking rapidly, from 80 per cent in the general election held in 2019 to barely 60 per cent in last year's general ballots. Both domestic and international factors have contributed to this trend. For years, Britain was rocked by a long-running scandal over the activities of male grooming gangs, preying on vulnerable young girls. Most of these gangs appeared to have been formed by men of Pakistani origin, while most of their victims were Caucasian girls. These criminal activities were first identified two decades ago. Yet the police seem to have done nothing for many years, allegedly because state prosecutors feared the racial implications of any action. The ringleaders of these gangs are now serving long prison sentences, and far-right politicians are using the stories of their crimes as arguments against Muslims and even Islam. Labour's apparent inability to silence these attempts to smear an entire community and faith have angered many Muslim voters. However, the biggest source of Muslim alienation from Labour is the war in Gaza and the British government's apparent unwillingness to adopt a more critical stance towards Israel. At last year's general election , a score of Muslim candidates ran against Labour, citing Gaza as their main concern. No less than four out of these were duly elected as MPs; all seized constituencies traditionally held by Labour and are now sitting as independents in Parliament. Until recently, Mr Starmer still hoped that this was just a temporary protest. But instead, the alienation of Muslims from Labour is being boosted through an emerging political pact between Muslim critics of the government and far-left rebel politicians. Chief among them is Mr Jeremy Corbyn, the standard-bearer of the far-left in Britain, and a former Labour leader. Mr Corbyn, who was thrown out of the Labour party but still held his old constituency and now also sits as an independent MP, plans to form a new party which will include the existing four Muslim independents in Parliament. At first sight, an alliance between the far-left and Muslim lawmakers seems odd. The two have different priorities, and an increasing number of British Muslims are self-employed, rather than being the low-paid industrial workers the far-left seeks to attract. But the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza is now drawing some Muslim voters and far-left activists together. They are 'tied by grievance politics' and by shared 'sympathies with foreign regimes which are hostile to the so-called Western interests', argues Dr Rakib Ehsan, a British academic of Bangladeshi origins. In theory, the emergence of a far-left fringe party should not concern Mr Starmer unduly. Even if this party led by Mr Corbyn and composed of Muslim dissident MPs succeeds in attracting a few other lawmakers, the current government enjoys an overall majority of 165 MPs in Parliament, so its existence is not immediately threatened. Still, there are plenty of reasons for the British government to worry. The first concern is that the new party may attract many new supporters at the next elections. A survey conducted by YouGov, a major pollster, on July 9 indicates that up to a third of Labour's core voters could be interested in defecting to the new party, and the figures are larger for Labour's Muslim supporters. Secondly, the rise of a distinct and alternative Muslim vote outside the Labour party could radicalise Muslims who remain loyal to Labour. Mr Starmer is already facing pressure to introduce legislation banning criticism of the Quran or the Prophet. Such legislation will be deeply unpopular with the rest of the British electorate. And the rise of a party that claims to speak for Britain's Muslims will make race relations in Britain far more toxic. For while Labour is losing Muslim supporters, the opposition Conservatives are gaining strong support from Jews and Hindus . It was not an accident that the only constituency the Conservatives gained in the 2024 general election was a strongly Hindu one. Nor is it accidental that the Conservatives are now demanding that the government outlaw marriages between first cousins, a measure bound to hit Labour's Muslim vote. About 55 per cent of British Pakistanis are married to first cousins, while the practice accounts for only 3 per cent of all other British marriages. In short, ugly sectarian politics are already appearing in Britain.
BBC News
11-07-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
East London Mosque 'was threatened after the 7/7 bombings'
On 7 July 2005, a series of explosions on London's public transport system killed 52 people and injured more than actions of the bombers, all British Muslims, affected Muslim communities - both immediately and in the long Khan, then an executive director at East London Mosque, described "a very tense time for all of us". He said the community felt anti-Muslim hatred, with women in particular afraid to leave their homes; that the mosque received "a number of bomb threats", and its windows were incident involved "a good number of men who came down and urinated in front of the main entrance". Although the mosque publicly condemned the attacks, Mr Khan said many Muslims in the community faced increased scrutiny, suspicion and hostility."Shortly after the incident, we received a couple of bomb threats," he said. "I remember it was two Fridays actually. Friday is the busiest day for the mosque and so we had to call the police."We also received white powder by post, and again we had to call the police. 'Fortunately, it wasn't anthrax."He said many Muslim women were 'afraid to go on the bus and the underground' even though one of the congregation of his mosque, a young woman in her 20s, was killed in the bombing."Women's hijabs were pulled, they were spat on."I remember one incident where a woman was refused entry on the bus. The bus driver, he was probably Islamophobic or racist."My own sisters, my wife, they felt very scared to go out." 'Alienated and attacked' Shahmina, a pharmacist, was just a teenager when the bombings took place."I was 13. And all of a sudden I startEd feeling quite alienated," she said. "Suddenly my faith felt like something that could be attacked."We felt afraid to openly be Muslim. 'We would avoid certain areas if we knew there wouldn't be a huge amount of Muslims there, because then we felt isolated."It was like you could become a prime target for Islamophobia and racism."It became rife after these attacks because what we were seeing in the media was a depiction that these attacks were central to being a Muslim and being Islamic and it wasn't - these attacks were isolated to individuals." Two decades on, London's Muslim community has more than doubled to 1.3m people, but for Shahmina, it is still difficult."I'm feeling it coming back again with the resurgence of what's happening in the international political sphere," she said."I think relations can improve if we start changing the language we use around Muslims and people of different ethnic groups."If we shift how we talk about them when a crime is committed, we may find that actually the general public will have a different view on our community." At the East london Mosque, community leaders regularly hold interfaith events and open days in the hopes of promoting a better understanding between people of different Shaqib Juneja is a former teacher and now works with a Muslim youth group."We don't want people to feel that we're different," he said. "That's an important point, because one of the things that happened after 7/7 was a lot of the talk that was happening from politicians, from the media, about the portrayal of Muslims, perhaps even on the BBC - it made Muslims feel we are different."It's not the community that has the problem, it's a few individuals."But when it's portrayed as the community having the problem, people start to feel there is a lack of trust."We're people just like everybody else. We're human beings. There are more things that we have in common than actually make us different."
