Labour’s Islamophobia policy threatens free speech

As someone who worked on countering anti-Muslim hate for more than a decade and who set up a national project to monitor this hatred, I am experienced in dealing with these issues. The work of nationally monitoring anti-Muslim hate is now being led by a determined British female leader of Palestinian heritage. Hers is a thankless task with significant risks. Anti-Muslim hate cases have significantly grown over recent years.

Given my experience, I decided to look at Labour’s Islamophobia Policy. This official document reads well. But it is only a matter of time before Labour comes under pressure to go further. Anti-Muslim hate is murderous and has led to the killing of three elderly men since 2013. It needs tackling.

Despite its positives, there are some glaringly obvious weaknesses in Labour’s document. It is written to be all things to all people. Despite the fact that the term “anti-Muslim hate” is more in line with legal definitions, I willingly accept the term “Islamophobia”, given its wider usage. It is nevertheless inaccurate and gives the impression to many that Islam is beyond question. It is easy for malign Right-wing actors to twist the term to suggest that Muslims want special protections around their faith, rather than against malign thugs.

While the policy tries to navigate its way through a range of definitions of Islamophobia, Labour adopted the All-Party Parliamentary Group’s (APPG) definition when Jeremy Corbyn was still leader in March 2019.

The APPG states that Islamophobia is “rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness”.

The problem with this definition is pretty obvious. “Muslimness” is such a wide term that many actions and characteristics can be caught within it.

For example, as a British Muslim, I have a real problem with polygamy in Islam. If I were to publicly criticise a fellow Muslim in Britain for practising polygamy, could he call me Islamophobic because I was attacking his perception of Muslimness – that there are means within Islam to marry more than one person?

This is just one simple example about how good intentions, allied with wide-sweeping generic terms, can lead to suppression of free speech for fellow Muslims and non-Muslims.

Labour must be extremely careful in trying to strike the right balance in this work, since these very definitions can be used by bad faith actors to smear and silence when terms such as “Muslimness” are so ill-defined.

The Labour Party adopted the APPG definition in “principle and solidarity”. Solidarity against anti-Muslim hate is much needed. But the decision felt more like Labour hedging its bets with various groups and stakeholders with different interpretations of how to tackle anti-Muslim hate.

The Labour policy feels like cooking a casserole hotpot: you just put in whatever you can access and hope that you manage to keep everyone happy.

The APPG definition has no legal basis and is not even knitted in with UK laws on hate crime.

It remains much like the “take the knee” campaign, a form of gesture politics nodding towards various camps with their definitions and ways of tackling anti-Muslim hate.

Labour’s policy document highlights a better definition by the Runnymede Trust, which is based on protecting the freedoms, and social, cultural and political rights, of Muslims. This then dovetails, somewhat, into elements of what UK laws cover on tackling anti-Muslim hatred, bigotry and prejudice.

Reading Labour’s Islamophobia Policy, it is easy to conclude that it is patched together with various interpretations squeezed into it, without coming up with a definition that can be used on a national basis or in line with British legal frameworks.

At some point, the issue of a workable and practical definition on anti-Muslim hatred is going to fall on the desks of civil servants in the Housing, Communities and Local Government department led by Angela Rayner.

What I urge officials and relevant ministers to do is to develop a clear definition that is relevant to the rights of individuals, their properties, their places of worship, and their employment rights.

Any definition must be practical, specific and workable, and not thrown together into a mush with a desire to please as many people and parties as possible. Any definition must make clear the dividing lines between “free speech” and criticism of religion and what constitutes anti-Muslim hatred.

The Labour policy has excellent examples of what constitutes anti-Muslim hatred, yet I could not read one sentence that defended free speech and the ability to criticise faith.

As more people reject and critique faith, it is important to know that – irrespective of whether one uses this right or not – it is a fundamental freedom that needs to be upheld and protected.

Fiyaz Mughal OBE has worked on interfaith and hate crime projects for over 25 years with three successive U.K. governments. He was approved to be the anti-Muslim Hate Advisor earlier in 2024, though turned down the role towards the end of the last government