How Afraid Should we be About the Government’s Plan to Come up With a Legal Definition of ‘Islamophobia’? Very Afraid

SAM BIDWELL

The Government is planning to introduce an official definition of ‘Islamophobia’ – which could criminalise criticism of Muslim migration and even grooming gangs.

According to reports from the Telegraph, the Government is planning a new legal definition of ‘Islamophobia’.

In order to do so, it will convene a 16-year member ‘council’ on Islamophobia, which could include figures such as Leeds imam Qari Asim.

Asim was appointed to serve as an “independent adviser on Islamophobia” in July, 2019 by the Conservative Government of Theresa May.

He was also Deputy Leader of the Government’s ‘Anti-Muslim Hatred Working Group’.

But in 2022, he was dismissed, after leading protests against the screening of a film about the Prophet Muhammad’s daughter.

Showings of The Lady of Heaven were pulled from cinemas in Bolton, Birmingham and Sheffield, amidst fears that Muslim protestors would attempt to intimidate cinemagoers.

Hardly a free speech champion.

The Government’s ‘Islamophobia’ council could also feature Dominic Grieve, the former Conservative MP who served as Attorney General between 2010 and 2014.

Grieve previously chaired the Citizens UK ‘Commission on Islam’, which aimed to promote dialogue between Muslims and non-Muslims in the UK. Back in 2018, Grieve also authored a foreword for ‘Islamophobia Defined’, a controversial report from the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims.

This report came up with a “working definition” of ‘Islamophobia’, for eventual legal adoption. In 2019, the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee formally adopted this definition. As such, we can be reasonably confident that the Government’s review will formalise something like the APPG definition.

But what does the APPG definition of ‘Islamophobia’ actually say?

Well, the ‘Islamophobia Defined’ report is a methodological disaster. It relies heavily on anecdote and the work of activist charities such as the Runnymede Trust. It also focuses on perceived discrimination, rather than tangible examples.

Polls such as these, which presuppose anti-Muslim sentiment amongst white Britons, feature heavily.

Eventually, the APPG’s report settled on the following definition:

Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.

What does this mean in practice? Helpfully, the report provides examples.

‘Islamophobia’ could include any of the following things – a fairly extensive list.

One example includes engaging in “stereotypes about Muslims” – for example, suggesting that Muslims have a particular propensity to commit or support acts of terror, or suggesting that Muslims tend to be more politically illiberal.

It’s easy to see how this definition could also capture legitimate recognition of facts like these:

• only 24% of UK Muslims say that Hamas committed rape and murder on October 7th
• 46% of UK Muslims say that they have more sympathy with Hamas than with Israel
• just 24% of UK Muslims have a negative view of Hamas
• 52% of UK Muslims favour making it illegal to depict the Prophet Muhammad
• 57% of UK Muslims support making it mandatory to provide halal food in public buildings
• just 23% of UK Muslims oppose the implementation of Sharia law in the UK
• just 28% of UK Muslims oppose outlawing homosexuality

That’s just one example.

The APPG definition also classes the following as falling within the definition of ‘Islamophobia’:

• complaining about immigration from majority Muslim countries
• talking about Muslim overrepresentation in prisons
• suggesting that Muslims are more likely to commit certain types of crime
• suggesting that Muslims are more likely to be reliant on the state for financial support
• talking about sectarian political networks, in places like Tower Hamlets
• talking about majority Muslim grooming gangs
• criticising halal slaughter
• stereotypical jokes about Muslims
• objecting to the presence of a mosque in your area
• mentioning that somebody is Muslim when the Government deems it “irrelevant”
• suggesting that Muslims are more likely to be sexist, homophobic or antisemitic
• supporting policies which would disproportionately impact Muslims, due to national security concerns
• opposing Palestinian statehood for reasons considered ‘prejudicial’ against Muslims
• denying that Islamophobia is one of the biggest problems that we face as a nation

The list goes on and on and on.

A formalised legal definition of ‘Islamophobia’, based on the APPG’s definition, would empower police forces to clamp down on everything in the list above, and more. Expressing any of these sentiments could mean you go to prison under anti-free speech laws such as the Public Order Act 1986, Malicious Communications Act 1988 or the Communications Act 2003.

This is particularly worrying given that, in many cases, the police are already cracking down on speech perceived as anti-Muslim.

On Sunday, a man in Manchester was arrested for burning a copy of the Qur’an in public. He was charged with a racially aggravated public order offence. This is not a standalone case. In February 2023, four pupils in Wakefield were suspended from school and investigated by police after scuffing a copy of the Qur’an. The mother of one of these boys was encouraged by police to apologise publicly at a local mosque.

And even when police don’t enforce these de facto blasphemy laws, local Muslim communities often do. In 2021, a teacher at Batley Grammar School was suspended, and forced into hiding, after showing pictures of the Prophet Muhammad to students. A formal Government definition will empower vigilantism like this.

But that may be the point. This is the logical next step in the British state’s approach to managing multiculturalism. Minority groups are afforded special legal protection, political representation and parallel institutions, such as courts and schools. Relations between groups are mediated by the state, with “alleviating community tensions” as the main guiding principle. The state seems particularly concerned with policing the law-abiding majority, and affords this group no special representation.

This approach, in turn, invites more special pleading from minority groups – and thus more rights and protections for those groups. The APPG definition of ‘Islamophobia’ is a case-in-point. It mimics the expansive IHRA definition of antisemitism, which critics say restricts criticism of Israel. In recent years, calls have also grown for a specific legal definition of ‘Hinduphobia’ and ‘anti-Sikh hate’.

This all points in one direction:

1. Fewer rights to free expression for the majority

2. More legal protections for minority groups

3. Further restrictions on freedom of speech, driven by a desire to protect and uphold the project of multiculturalism

But it doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t need to build special protections into law for any group – and we could repeal the dangerous anti-free speech laws which enable these crackdowns on inconvenient speech.

The whole rotten structure needs to be dismantled. We deserve the right to free expression, whether or not it causes offence. We deserve to live in a country where our freedoms are protected, regardless of who it upsets.

Sam Bidwell is Director of the Next Generation Centre at the Adam Smith Institute.

---