The Communities Secretary has pledged to stop any Islamophobia definition that threatens free speech.
A working group was set up to agree suitable wording for the definition, but has been widely criticised. Steve Reed MP, who recently succeeded Angela Rayner as Secretary of State for Communities, stated he was prepared to overrule any definition proposed by the group if he found it amounted to “blasphemy laws by the backdoor”.
The Labour Party’s current definition, which has been slammed for being too broad, claims: “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.”
Defend free speech
Reed said: “We haven’t got a definition to introduce yet. There’s a group working on it and we’ll have to look at what they propose. But at the front of my mind in taking that decision will be, ‘I will defend free speech’.”
The Free Speech Union commented: “We already have laws in this country that protect people from religious hatred, as well as laws protecting people of all faiths from discrimination.”
The group added: “The way to protect Muslims is to enforce those statutes, not to introduce a Muslim blasphemy law by the back door.”
‘Misguided’
In a letter signed by 36 members of the House of Lords in July, Peers called the attempt at a Islamophobia definition “misguided” and stated that it would only foster community division.
The signatories warned that although the definition would be non-statutory, it would still have consequences, particularly in universities, where “defining ‘Islamophobia/Anti-Muslim Hatred’ and urging universities to prohibit it will inevitably inhibit legitimate academic research about Islam.”
They cautioned that “any member of a university that says or does something that falls foul of the definition would face potential penalties”. The letter gave the example of Trevor Phillips, who was suspended from the Labour Party under its non-statutory Islamophobia definition, before later being cleared.
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