Latest draft presented by Dominic Grieve’s working group risks shutting down legitimate debate and will only empower extremists
December 22, 2025 15:53
It is incredible – in the literal sense of being scarcely believable – but also entirely predictable that on the very day after 15 Jews were murdered by two Islamist terrorists in Australia, a draft definition of “Islamophobia” (although the draft does not use that word) prepared for the British government found its way into the ether, prior to its official publication.
Incredible, because there could hardly have been a more inappropriate moment to reveal plans to stifle analysis of Islam than the day after a slaughter carried out by an Islamist. The attack was a demonstration in itself of how lacking we are in the West in both a serious analysis of the threat posed by radical Islam, and of a serious response to that threat.
But the release of the draft was predictable, too, given how most of the left – specifically the Labour Party – long ago fell in thrall to those pushing the stifling of such serious analysis (and attendant criticism), and because Labour is scared witless by the threat to its MPs posed by independent sectarian Muslim candidatures.
So here we are today, with the latest version of the long-running attempt to create a de facto blasphemy law protecting Islam from analysis and criticism.
To understand the definition now being presented it is important to remember recent history. In 2018 the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims proposed a definition pushed by the likes of Islamist pressure group MEND and former Conservative Party chair Baroness Warsi: “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.” This definition was immediately adopted by Labour, although the Conservative government had no truck with it.
You hardly need me to point out that it is so all-embracing as to define almost all scrutiny, let alone criticism, of Islam in any form as Islamophobic. Counter-terrorism professionals, women’s rights groups, grooming gang experts and those concerned with free speech lined up to oppose it.
In opposition Labour went out of its way to avoid almost any potential controversy on any issue, and so although it remained committed to introducing a definition of Islamophobia if it took power, it attempted to diffuse anger from those opposed to the de facto new blasphemy law proposed in the 2018 definition by saying that it would set up a working group to come up with a new wording.
It duly did that last year, but anyone who thought this would make any significant difference to the threat posed by a definition was soon disabused when it was announced that the chair would be former Conservative Attorney General Dominic Grieve, who wrote an approving foreword to that 2018 report. Other members of the working group had histories and views that suggested their findings would be all too predictable.
To compound the problem, the working group sought to rig its supposed consultation by controlling who was able to respond by restricting circulation of the relevant online form to a small number of carefully chosen Muslim individuals and groups, which ministers refused to name. Still, the president of the Board of Deputies welcomed the idea of a definition, a position the Board has held for some time, doubtless with the best of intentions.
It was only when Conservative MP Nick Timothy publicised the consultation web page that the working group was forced to accept unsolicited responses. It should therefore surprise no one that the proposed definition – not, now, of Islamophobia but instead of “anti-Muslim hostility” – is no improvement on that of 2018, particularly when we bear in mind that racist and religious hate crime is already an offence.
Here is the new wording: "Anti-Muslim hostility is engaging in or encouraging criminal acts, including acts of violence, vandalism of property, and harassment and intimidation whether physical, verbal, written or electronically communicated, which is directed at Muslims or those perceived to be Muslims because of their religion, ethnicity or appearance.
"It is also the prejudicial stereotyping and racialisation of Muslims, as part of a collective group with set characteristics, to stir up hatred against them, irrespective of their actual opinions, beliefs or actions as individuals.
"It is engaging in prohibited discrimination where the relevant conduct – including the creation or use of practices and biases within institutions - is intended to disadvantage Muslims in public and economic life."
The new definition provides no extra protection or even adds to the Crown Prosecution Service’s existing guidance, which says the following questions need to be assessed when presented with such a crime: “Was there any use of derogatory language towards ethnicity, race, nationality or religion, (including caste, converts and those of no faith)? Was it a sustained attack? Did it involve excessive violence? Was cruelty, humiliation or degradation involved? Was the area in which the incident occurred particularly associated with a specific community defined by race or religion or was this in response to or undertaken at a time coinciding with a specific festival, carnival or ceremony associated with a specific community and its ethnicity, race, nationality or religion?”
It should hardly be necessary for me to add that I am horrified by hate crimes against Muslims or anyone else, like any right-minded person. But the new definition gives no extra protection from criminal acts to Muslims – yet that does not mean it is toothless. Quite the opposite – but its impact is in its other aspects, and in regard to those is both sinister and dangerous.
Take the “prejudicial stereotyping…of Muslims”. Is it a prejudicial stereotyping of Muslims to point out when an Islamist terrorist claims to be driven by the Koran? Some groups already seek to close down such discussions on precisely the rationale of the definition. They claim that even raising these issues castigates all Muslims, stereotyping them as terror supporters.
A government-backed definition would aid these groups in shutting down discussion.
Another section of the definition refers to anti-Muslim hate as being the “use of practices and biases within institutions … to disadvantage Muslims”. We have already seen unsuccessful cases of Muslim pupils going to court to demand the right to hold separate prayers in schools, such as Michaela Community School in Brent. Religious prayers are prohibited precisely to avoid racial and religious separation within a school. The definition can be seen as branding such schools as promoting anti-Muslim hate and might well lead to a different result in court.
As Nick Timothy has pointed out in response to the definition: “Could a judge instruct a witness or defendant to remove their veil? Could a school enforce a ban on hijabs for prepubescent girls? Could a politician argue for a ban on the burqa in public places?”
There are endless other examples of the further chilling effect this definition would have on discussions which are already hidebound by a fear of being labelled Islamophobic. One key factor which allowed the grooming gangs to flourish was the fear by police and local authorities of that accusation.
Members of the working group have indicated that they think that by avoiding the word Islamophobia they have somehow removed the issues raised by it. This is, to be blunt, idiotic. The issue is not whether restricting discussion of issues involving Islam and Muslims is done in the name of tackling Islamophobia or whether it is done in the name of tackling anti-Muslim hate. The issue is the impact on such discussions, however they are labelled. Be in no doubt, for example, as to the result of defining anti-Muslim hate as “harassment and intimidation whether physical, verbal, written or electronically communicated, which is directed at Muslims or those perceived to be Muslims because of their religion, ethnicity or appearance”. It would mean that discussion of the common religious identity of so many grooming gang members would be branded as anti-Muslim hate.
None of this has arisen in a vacuum. It is merely one prong – albeit an important one – in the influence of Muslim Brotherhood (MB) front groups, their mainstream sympathisers and allies. Already people are prosecuted for burning the Koran or for saying things that some Muslims say is offensive - and where mobs, as in Batley, can force a teacher into hiding for daring to show an image of Muhammad in a lesson on freedom of expression. The idea that this is some sort of benign attempt to tackle prejudice against Muslims – who are, rightly, protected by the law, like everyone else – is at best naïve (there are some proponents of a definition whose naivety is indeed genuine, however bizarre it might be that they are unaware of the nature of the MB and its allies) but, more often, a typically sophistic piece of deception by Brotherhood allies and front groups.
Given Labour’s majority, and its sheer terror at the rise of the sectarian Muslim vote, there is little chance that this can be resisted politically. But there are other avenues open – not least judicial review, since the working group’s modus operandi appears, according to some expert lawyers, not to comply with the statutory duty of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to advise on religious discrimination.
The EHRC has itself warned that an official definition could have a “chilling effect” on freedom of speech and harm community cohesion. It wrote to Communities Secretary Steve Reed to warn that a formal definition could cause “inconsistency” and “confusion” for courts and individuals. As they pointed out, it is “unclear what role a new definition would play”, given that legal protections against discrimination and hate crime already exist.
These arguments might have some sway if the intention behind a definition was benign or to bolster community cohesion. But it isn’t: those pushing for a definition are either deliberately seeking to privilege Islam so that non-believers are prevented as far as possible from critiquing its teachings, its scriptures and the actions of its adherents; or they have so swallowed the fiction that it is a mere tidying up exercise to give Muslims the protection that they are due, that they have lost the ability to judge reality.
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