Letter in the Times today:
Sir, In his article “Anti-Muslim hostility policy escalates division” (Nov 3), Paul Goodman observes correctly that this government’s introduction of an official anti-Muslim definition to guide its agencies can only heighten existing tensions. It defies belief that, in its drafting, the government has pandered to various Muslim pressure groups, which it refuses to name for fear that revealing the perceived extreme nature of some of them will undermine the credibility of the whole exercise.
On a practical level, how can legislation such as this possibly work in a country that considers free speech the cornerstone of democracy, yet which must suppress it when discussing just one imported religion with its own separate culture, many of whose adherents consider their primary loyalty to be to Islam rather than to their country of adoption?
On a political level, it is shamefully partisan. For the country, it is a tragedy, as it is a further, but by far the most serious example yet, of this government putting party interest before the nation’s. One can only wonder how long it will be before some official agency’s interpretation of the new anti-Muslim guidelines leads to formal action against the writer of views such as those expressed in this letter: a quite terrifying thought.
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