Mick Hartley

Back in February we had Kemi Badenoch robustly calling out Labour's Anneliese Dodds, who'd been bemoaning the failure of senior conservatives to tackle "the scourge of Islamophobia":

We use the term “Anti-Muslim hatred”. It makes clear the law protects Muslims. In this country, we have a proud tradition of religious freedom AND the freedom to criticise religion. The definition of “Islamophobia” she uses creates a blasphemy law via the back door if adopted.

My comment at the time, "I thought the battle against the ridiculous term "Islamophobia" had been pretty much lost. Encouraging to see this, then…"

And the fightback continues:

Extremists are exploiting the tag of Islamophobia to stifle free speech, says a report backed by Sajid Javid.

The report, published on Monday by the think tank Policy Exchange, details how the term “Islamophobia” is being misused to silence debate about issues such as moves to ban terrorist sympathisers of Hamas….

In a foreword to the report, Mr Javid, a former home secretary, said a new definition of Islamophobia, put forward by a parliamentary group and backed by Labour, would undermine efforts to tackle hatred of Muslims, would be a serious threat to free speech and could worsen existing divisions.

The definition, drawn up by an all-party group chaired by Wes Streeting, now shadow health secretary, described Islamophobia as “rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness”.

However, Mr Javid said it would risk creating a blasphemy law via the back door by targeting legitimate speech. “Many who propose this new definition have good intentions. But the nakedly political motivations from organisations like Cage and Mend are all too clear,” he said.

“Too often, Islamophobia has been weaponised as a political football, to the detriment of a meaningful conversation that can enable positive change.”

Describing the misuse of the label Islamophobia as a “creeping malaise”, the report highlighted more than a dozen examples, including criticism of Rishi Sunak by the Labour Muslim Network (LMN) after he urged Labour MPs to “call on Hamas and the Houthis to de-escalate the situation” in the Middle East….

Dr Paul Stott, head of security and extremism at Policy Exchange, said: “As the examples illustrate, in the period of emotion and tension since Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel on 7th October, the use of the term Islamophobia has become wider, less coherent and at times inflated to a remarkable degree. The threat to freedom of speech could not be more clearly signposted.”

As I said some years back:

The charge of Islamophobia deliberately obscures that separation between a person and their beliefs. It accepts the Islamic vision of an immutable union of person and religion. We should refuse to accept those terms. A person's ethnic origins may be Pakistani, Arab, Kurd, European, whatever, and to criticise or abuse them for that is racist and unacceptable. Their beliefs, whether in Islam, Scientology, UFOs, or any other ideology, creed or cult, is an entirely different matter, and should be open to criticism, debate, scepticism, up to and including ridicule. That's the way we do it, and that's what we should be defending. Worship who or what you want, wear what you want, think what you want, but don't expect to be spared from being offended by the opinions and beliefs of others. The charge of Islamophobia is, precisely, an attempt to make criticism of Islam illegitimate – and that attempt should be resisted. We should be free to criticise Islam just as we criticise Christianity, socialism, capitalism, or any other system of beliefs.

The fact that the most well-known Islamic apostate, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, is under constant police protection, that Ibn Warraq, author of "Why I am Not a Muslim", has to write under a pseudonym, and that cartoons of Mohammed still attract death threats and Facebook bans, suggests how far we still have to go. The aim should be, at least for those Muslims resident in the West, that they feel as free to abandon the faith of their parents (or not to, of course) as Christians, atheists, and all the rest of us are free now to make our own choices. As long as Islamophobia is accepted as a legitimate term of criticism, we won't start making any progress.