Definition of Islamophobia

Debate between Naz Shah and Wes Streeting

Thursday 16th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

As vice-chair of the all-party group on British Muslims, I thank my colleagues, my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) and the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), for applying for this hugely important debate and the Backbench Business Committee for granting it.

Truth be told, when I look across the House today, I realise this debate is not just about the definition of Islamophobia; it is also about the ever-prevalent Islamophobia across our society and in the online world peddled by the far right, leading to attacks every day on British Muslims, and the acceptable norms of prejudice passed across the dinner table and, frankly, in enclaves of the Tory party that fuel Islamophobia or allow it to be ignored.

Those watching this debate will notice that, although every other Westminster political party has accepted the APPG definition of Islamophobia, one party has not: the Conservative party, which refuses to accept the definition. Indeed, every party in Scotland, including the Conservative party, has accepted and endorsed the definition. I pay tribute to Ruth Davidson for showing great leadership on that.

I originally prepared my speech for the debate that was postponed. Sadly, I can no longer deliver that speech because, just in the last 24 hours, I have witnessed the orchestrated nature of a machine that has come out in spectacular fashion in a continued attempt to shut down the voices and experiences of ordinary British Muslims. What I say today is neither a conspiracy nor some delusional hyperbole. I am referring to the fact that the chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, Martin Hewitt, wrote to the Prime Minister suggesting that the APPG definition of Islamophobia creates some sort of security risk. Let me put this to bed once and for all: this is a non-legally binding working definition, which is why that assertion is simply plain stupid. It is as stupid as saying that, because we have a non-legally binding definition of antisemitism, we can no longer do foreign policy in the middle east.

I am a member of the National Police Chiefs’ Council national roundtable for race, religion and belief, which until this week was chaired by Chief Constable Jon Boutcher. He was not aware of Martin Hewitt’s letter or concerns. Furthermore, Chief Constable Ian Hopkins, the national lead on matters of policing and diversity from Greater Manchester police, did not know either, and nor did John Robins, my chief constable in West Yorkshire.

What is deeply worrying is not only that Martin Hewitt attributes concerns to his colleagues without actually speaking to them, but that the intervention suggests that the police have a disgraceful lack of understanding of hate crimes. They recognise the importance of having racism and antisemitism defined, but the intervention suggests that the police are blind to the same need for Muslims, despite the fact that year on year the police have consistently produced figures that show an increase in hate crime against Muslims.

This is not just about a Government who are failing to listen to the British Muslim communities; this is about a Government who on the eve of this debate coincidently and conveniently had a security leak from within their highest office, the office of the Prime Minister, with the serious concerns of the protection of British Muslims played out as a game on the front pages of a national newspaper. This is no longer about a political party that is institutionally Islamophobic; this is about a Government telling a section of those they govern they will not only silence their voices and ignore their legitimate fears, but define their experiences and actively shut down those trying to represent their views.

If it is down to the experiences of women to define feminism, the experiences of people of colour to define racism, the experiences of Jews to define antisemitism, and the experiences of LGBTQ+ communities to define homophobia, I say to the Secretary of State: how dare he tell British Muslims that our experiences cannot define Islamophobia. If that is not a pernicious form of racism, what is it?

For me this is much more than just rejecting the definition. It is disgraceful when the most senior Muslim woman in the Tory party, the former chair of the party, Baroness Warsi, continuously calls for an inquiry into Islamophobia, yet time and again that is completely ignored. It is despicable that the Conservative party ran a dog-whistle Islamophobic campaign against the London Mayor Sadiq Khan and still refuses to apologise. It is unacceptable that, when I called for a debate on Islamophobia in this Chamber, the Leader of the House responded with blatant othering by suggesting that this was an issue for the Foreign Office, thus saying that British Muslims are not citizens of this nation. Maybe she was taking lessons from her colleague, the Home Secretary; I do not know. It is scandalous and frankly an act of misconduct in every field of work for a male to demean women for the way they choose to dress, yet it is unapologetically acceptable for the former Foreign Secretary to describe women in burkas as “letter boxes” and “bank robbers”. It is hypocrisy of the highest order when the Conservative party’s internal complaints procedure when dealing with Islamophobes is to publicly suspend them and privately sneak them back in when it thinks nobody is watching.

While all the above could be explained as a party in denial, the leak suggests this is a party in government that is willing to orchestrate a campaign to reject the recognition of the very real and prevalent nature of Islamophobia. A line has been crossed, beyond the failure to act, to send a clear message to British Muslim communities that this Government are not serious about the safety and security of British Muslims. As a British Muslim woman, that message is clear to me today, as it will be to those up and down this country.

In March 2018, when the right hon. Member for Broxtowe said to the Government that it was high time for there to be a proper legal definition of Islamophobia, the response from the Minister was:

“We do not accept the need for a definitive definition”.—[Official Report, 12 March 2018; Vol. 637, c. 595.]

So a year ago, the Government said they did not need a definition and today they are saying they need a definition but just not the one accepted by British Muslims. They choose to reject the definition that is rooted in the experiences of British Muslims and thus is widely accepted by over 750 Muslims institutions and organisations.

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. I can say hand on heart that she is speaking with the passion and clarity that I hear in mosques and Muslim community centres in my constituency. I heard from the Conservative Benches the comment that clearly not all Muslims agree with this definition and that is true, but I would just, through her, ask the Secretary of State to reflect on the same claims that are made by members of my own party about Jewish Voice for Labour and by other fringe groups who consistently seek to undermine the real fight against antisemitism. I am not talking about Members of this House who disagree; I am talking about fringe siren voices. Do not mistake the views of a minority with the views of the majority.

[Naz Shah]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and he is absolutely right. The truth is that the Conservative party refuses to accept the definition accepted by over 750 Muslim institutions and organisations from across the spectrum, spanning from the Muslim Council of Britain, the largest umbrella body for British Muslims, to prominent Muslim women groups such as the Muslim Women’s Network, to British Muslims for Secular Democracy, and that is in addition to 80 academics, some of whose life’s work has been on racism.

In the spirit of speaking about freedoms, let me turn the Secretary of State’s attention to article 3 of the universal declaration of human rights:

“everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of a person”.

So I ask him: when Mohammed Saleem was murdered in 2013 in an Islamophobic terrorist attack, where was his freedom? Where was his right to life? Where was the national response from the Government? Where were the advisers forming a definition of Islamophobia?

When Mushin Ahmed, an 81-year-old grandfather from Rotherham, was murdered in 2015 in an Islamophobic terrorist attack, where was the Government response to his murder? In fact, never mind the Government not forming any sort of strategy to tackle Islamophobia: after his right to life was denied—after the duty to protect a Muslim grandfather was failed—where was the Government statement? Where was the Cobra meeting? Why was there no taskforce? Why have this Government failed to act while Islamophobia has continued to rise and rise and rise? It then took the third far-right Islamophobic attack, the mowing down of Makram Ali outside Finsbury park in Ramadan 2017, for the Government to finally acknowledge that this was terrorism.

I make no apologies for my emotions today. It has only been two months since we saw the deadly attacks in Christchurch, where over 50 Muslims were murdered at their place of worship. I do not want to personalise this debate, but I think it is important to give examples to illustrate the problem. These are just a handful of comments directed towards me—the ones I could read without crying. Beyond that, Muslims receive such abuse every single day as they go about their lives: “String her up”; “I will do time for you”; “I hope you see your children dead in your arms”; and “You don’t deserve life...You are pure evil and your clock is ticking.”

Lives have been lost, globally and in the UK, and only now has the Islamophobia debate got to this stage —and even then through a Backbench Business debate. If we do not act today, I ask which Muslim’s life must go next before we simply recognise and understand Islamophobia. Never before have I shared this openly, but I do question, as many Muslims across this country do, which Muslim’s life will be next and whether it will be mine.

So I ask the Secretary of State and the Government to rethink their decision. It is high time we accepted this definition and moved forward to actually tackle Islamophobia. For those of privilege, a definition—or no definition—is just semantics, but for British Muslims, it is about their safety, the security of their lives and the fear of their sisters’ hijabs being pulled off on the streets. It is about their places of worship being attacked while they pray; it is about being denied a job because of their Muslim-sounding name and struggling to make ends meet; and it is about their right to be equal citizens because of the faith they belong to.

I have also discussed this matter at length with the Foreign Office Minister, Lord Tariq Ahmad of Wimbledon. As well as being the Prime Minister’s special representative on freedom of religion and belief, he is one of the most senior members of the British Ahmadiyya community. He agrees with the term “Islamophobia” and believes that this definition protects the Ahmadiyya community. What better assurance could the Government want than that? I share this because, when speaking to various Ministers from the Home Office, one of the concerns raised has been the issue of the definition not dealing with sectarianism. I put it to the Minister that, if sectarianism is something that this Government want to address, we can convene a roundtable with the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, representatives of ultra-orthodox and liberal Jewry, the plethora of sects and castes within the British Hindu community and representatives of various Muslim sects and other religions to ensure that we consider the issue of sectarianism in its totality. Surely the Secretary of State is not suggesting that the Government are only interested in sectarianism within the Muslim community, because such an exceptionalist approach would be dangerous and divisive.

To conclude, the choice of which side of history the Government choose to stand on is a choice for them, but the fight for equal protection for British Muslims will go on. Those of us, Muslim or not, who believe in equality for all will stand shoulder to shoulder with them. The Conservative party has sadly always found itself on the wrong side of history. It did so with women’s rights and with the rights of black people and of the LGBTQ+ community. Every time, it finds itself on the wrong side of history and, every time, it is my party that has to teach it what equality means. Once again today, as we see Islamophobia on the rise, we see the Conservative party failing even to acknowledge the term “Islamophobia” or give this latest form of racism a definition.

Over the past month, I have seen this Government—and those connected to them through a tangled web of think-tanks, newspapers and other ideological bedfellows —ramp up their opposition to British Muslims who are seeking a protection framework equal to those given to our fellow citizens. This has not gone unnoticed in Parliament, in our constituencies, on the streets or in the homes where a young British Muslim community feels that, under this Government, it has been forced to frame and fight its own civil rights movement. The effect of this will eventually be felt in Parliament when the Conservatives, now no longer fit to govern, feel the consequences, through the ballot box, of failing to give everyone in this country equal value and worth. If I, as a Muslim woman MP representing the largest Muslim constituency in the country, do not feel safe, how do I tell those people that they will be safe?