What is Islamophobia?
Like obscenity, good art, or a good speech by Kemi Badenoch, is one supposed to know it when they see it? Ask Google, and it is defined as “dislike or prejudice against Islam or Muslims, especially as a political force”. Ask Wikipedia, and you get the similar, if broader, “the irrational fear of hostility towards, or hatred against, the religion of Islam or Muslims or general”.
But if one leaves the information superhighway, and asks Wes Streeting, one would be told that Islamophobia is “rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness”. That was the definition in the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims, chaired by the now-Health Secretary, in 2018, and adopted by the Labour Party.
Each is flawed because the concept of Islamophobia itself is flawed. It elides criticism of a religion – Islam – with the criticism of a particular people – Muslims. One can be worried about abuse or violence towards the latter whilst critiquing the former, just as one can think the principle of original sin is diabolical and be concerned if a Catholic neighbour got a brick through their window.
If you want a far more eloquent expansion on that principle, read this article by Ed Husain. In the meantime, it is enough that this Labour government doesn’t share my approach. This morning’s Telegraph brought the news that Angela Rayner plans to set up a council on Islamophobia. 16-strong, this will draw up an official definition of the phobia and advise on how to tackle it.
Of Tory interest is the news that Dominic Grieve, the ex-Attorney General and occasional ConHome contributor has been tapped to head this council up. Having written the foreword to that report, and chaired the Citizens’ UK Commission on Islam, Grieve has previous. Like David Gauke on prisons, he is being used to provide a veneer of cross-party consensus where it isn’t.
Grieve may argue that the Conservative Party left him – by stripping him of the whip – rather than the other way around. But it is notable that, just as he fell out with the party over Brexit, he also broke from the party line over the adoption of the APPG definition. His being chosen as the chair would not guarantee its official adoption but would surely weigh the scales in its favour.
Why does this matter? Because there are long-standing concerns that this definition of Islamophobia will act as a stifling constraint on free speech. In the words of Robert Jenrick – an enthusiastic young man with a bright career ahead of him – “we should tackle anti-Muslim hate wherever it occurs, but this definition is a Trojan horse for a blasphemy law protecting Islam”. How so?
Muslims are protected from being treated unfavourably based on their religion by the 2010 Equality Act. The 2006 Racial and Religious Hatred Act also makes it a crime to incite hatred against someone due to their religion, but with a clause allowing “discussion, criticism, or expressions of antipathy”. Debate that Catholic neighbour, but don’t command an angry mob.
Yet this definition has been attacked for being sufficiently broad as to make criticism of Islam far more difficult. By hinging on perception, it is sufficiently wide to catch legitimate criticisms of Muslims and Islam. Grieve himself acknowledged this when he suggested “defining Islamophobia is extremely difficult for perfectly valid reasons in relation to freedom of expression”.
Under this definition, there is the chance that everything from jokes about Muslim stereotypes to opposition to Palestinian statehood could be criminalised. This definition would cover everything from the tasteless to the accurate, especially when talking about how British Muslim attitudes differ from those of much of the country. Apropos of nothing, it would make discussing rape gangs more fraught.
Bad faith actors could exploit such a definition to act as the de facto blasphemy law that a Labour backbencher called for last year. Since one of those suggested to be on Rayner’s panel has previously backed a ban on a film he considered offensive to Muslims, perhaps this is the point. Having been spooked by Muslim voters last July, Labour might believe this is how to curry favour.
But an attempt to show Muslims are listened to looks more suspect a day after a man was arrested for setting fire to a Koran in Manchester. As Ben Sixsmith points out, you can be sympathetic to those worried about religious beliefs being denigrated whilst finding it terrifying to see order put before mockery. Adopting this definition would empower the police to enforce it.
If adopting this definition is the thin end of an authoritarian wedge, then Grieve should be wary about Labour’s public face for it.
