Definition of Islamophobia

Dominic Grieve Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), with whom I worked during his time as Security Minister. I would like to start by condemning the acts in Christchurch, New Zealand and in Sri Lanka.

I have been on the receiving end of hate mail and actions from both the far right and from the Islamist community. I have taken my job seriously since 2001 and I continue to do so. I am proud to be a British Pakistani Muslim Member of Parliament. I was elected in 2001 for Birmingham, Perry Barr, as the first Muslim to be elected to this Parliament from England. My great-grandfather and his brothers and cousins served in the British merchant navy in the first world war. My grandfather and his brothers and cousins served in the British merchant navy in the second world war. My maternal great-grandfather served in the British Indian Army in the second world war. I am proud of my roots and my heritage. I will take no lessons from anybody who tells me that I am Islamophobic or that I am too much of a Muslim. I am what I am, and I continue to be proud of that heritage. I am proud to be a member of the Labour party, because of its ideals in fighting against antisemitism, Muslim hatred, race hatred and LGBT hatred. I believe in equality and justice for all. That is why I am a Member of Parliament for the Labour party.

My objection to the report on Islamophobia by the all-party group on British Muslims is principled, and I will outline it later in my contribution. It is because of my long-held belief and the work I have done since 2011 that I oppose the report, and I will go deeper into that. That does not deflect from criticism of any political party that does not take Muslim hatred seriously. All political parties are accountable for hatred by any individual, particularly Muslim hatred. Therefore, all parties and all their members—elected or not—should be held to account on that basis.

The foreword of the report is by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), who is highly esteemed and highly respected, I think, on both sides of the House. However, I do take slight issue when he says that

“Islamophobia was playing a major role in undermining integration and community cohesion.”

I have been looking at the issue of integration since 2001. The big problem with integration has predominantly been, from the 1980s and before, the way the Government fund communities. They fund communities to stay in isolation. They have funded the Sikh community, the Hindu community, the Afro-Caribbean community and the Churches community, and everybody is always divided, competing against each other for the bit of funding they get for community recognition. Whatever the issues are, I think they lie with all the communities, but not all communities are subject to Islamophobia in relation to integration.

[Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

If I may say so, I think the hon. Gentleman has entirely misunderstood the content of my foreword. My foreword was simply designed to make the point that my own experience—I will touch on that in a moment—is that Islamophobia in the widest sense and as understood by the public, which is an irrational hatred directed towards Muslims, is playing a major role in preventing integration, in my view. That is my point. I will amplify it later, but I just want to make that quite clear.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to participate in the debate—well, I think it is—and it is certainly a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood). I found myself agreeing with a great deal of what he had to say, although I was struck by the fact that, I think, he had misunderstood something I had written as part of the foreword to the APPG report.

I was not involved in some of the initial stages of the APPG report, but its members came to me—I was a member in any event—and asked for my input, because they knew that I had participated in and indeed chaired the Citizens UK commission that produced “The Missing Muslims”, a document that looked at Muslim participation in the public life of our country. For that, we went around the country and took extensive evidence in a large number of locations. It was wide-ranging and dealt with problems in mosque management and discrimination against women. A great many difficult subjects were touched on in the course of that inquiry, but one thing that emerged with absolute, complete clarity was the fact that Islamophobia—and I shall return to that word in a moment—exists in this country in ways that are having a significant impact on the daily lives of British Muslims, and, indeed, as was pointed out by the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), those who may be mistaken for Muslims. Both his constituency and mine contain substantial Sikh communities.

Much of this behaviour falls well short of criminality. Indeed, I should make it clear that I do not believe that any useful purpose would be served by trying to criminalise it, because at that point one would embark on an endless cycle, which I think would have no benefit at all. Some Members who were around more than 10 years ago will remember that I was rather active when the legislation on incitement to religious hatred was introduced, arguing strongly in the House that the way in which the then Government were seeking to word it risked placing a fetter on free speech because it was too broadly drafted and included such terms as “ridicule”. I considered that it was within the tenets of a free society to express ridicule for another person’s religious beliefs. As a Christian, I encounter people who express ridicule for my beliefs, and I just have to live with it.

That having been said, I live, and have the benefit of living, in what is, in a sense, part of what would be seen as a majority community in this country, and I do not think we should underestimate the adverse impact that what I call Islamophobia is having on our society. It is acting as a preventer of integration, and we in the House should be paying some attention to it, because as leaders in our communities—which is what we are seen to be—we ought to be showing a lead in trying to eradicate it as much as possible. That does not mean preventing people from expressing perfectly reasoned criticisms, or, indeed, sometimes unreasonable criticisms, of other people’s religious beliefs; but human society cannot thrive unless we treat other human beings with respect, and lack of respect can have a corrosive impact.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I agree with what the right hon. and learned Gentleman is saying. He mentioned discrimination. It is right that religions can be criticised, but I am sure he will agree that when certain sections of the media tell blatant lies about Muslims, media discussion of Islam becomes worrisome.

[Mr Grieve]

I often read in newspapers things about Islam that I know from my own experience—I am a trustee of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies—to be inaccurate. Of course, we must also acknowledge, as, indeed, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr did, that Islam is not a homogenous practice. It is extremely diverse, just as is Christianity or, for that matter, Judaism. There will be areas of practice and criticism within the faith itself. As we know from the events in the middle east and the hostility between Shi’a and Sunni, a deep division, or indeed hostility towards groups who are considered to be heretical, such as Ahmadiyyans, is a real issue.

[Justine Greening (Putney) (Con)]

Both my right hon. and learned Friend and I have a strong relationship with our local Ahmadiyya communities. I think it is worth drawing attention to the role that they play in trying to combat Islamophobia, which, in my opinion, has absolutely no place in any political party or any element of our society in a modern Britain. I pay tribute to the many Members who support the work that is done day in, day out on the streets of our country.

[Mr Grieve]

I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend.

My view has always been that Islamophobia—which I find quite easy to identify in my own mind—is a process whereby utterly law-abiding individuals who wish to live in peace with their neighbours and get on with their daily lives find themselves subjected to abuse with no rational basis whatsoever, and it is very prevalent. Part of that may be a result of the disturbed conditions in the middle east and the growth of terrorism. I do not think it possible to disconnect the one from the other: the connection is very clear. However, that does not reduce our duty to try to do something about it.

That brings me to the work of the all-party parliamentary group and the foreword that I wrote. Those who were present at the APPG meeting which I attended will remember that I issued a gentle critique of the definition that it had drafted, and we had a very interesting discussion, in particular about the word “racism”, which is common parlance in the House and indeed the country, but whose usage has changed significantly over recent decades. It started as an attempt to define a prejudice or discrimination on the basis of someone’s immutable colour characteristics, but it has evolved over time into meaning something rather broader—I think the penny has gradually dropped that our colour characteristics are not necessarily all that immutable—and has taken on a far more cultural and wider context. It can be defined as hostility to the “other” outside one’s own group.

It was for that reason that the APPG looked at the definition in trying to establish a working definition of Islamophobia that might be useful. As I have said, during the meeting I gently pointed out that I could see where the pitfalls were likely to be, but I wrote the foreword because it seemed to me that it was possible to go round and round in circles, and that seeking a redefinition could well be useful to public authorities and groups that were trying to tackle Islamophobia. I should emphasise that neither I nor—I think—any member of the APPG thought that a new legal definition was being enacted and that condign punishment would be visited on any individual who transgressed what someone else’s definition might be.

I have to say that I am rather depressed to see some of the reaction to this work. I am sorry to have to say it, because I have great respect for Policy Exchange, but a great deal of this report is total and unadulterated rubbish. It strays off into areas that are about a million miles removed from Islamophobia. I really do not know about Mr Hewitt and the police officer and his issues concerning counter-terrorism, but how it could possibly be argued that this definition could prevent the police from enforcing the law against terrorists in this country is beyond my comprehension. It is breathtaking.

The lesson that I derive from this is that, unfortunately, we are treading on eggshells. When attempts to crystallise a definition to enable better debate and understanding—which, in my view, were clearly well-meaning—are immediately transformed into a culture war in which it starts to be alleged that what is being attempted is the suppression of free speech, I become profoundly depressed. The exaggerations in the report seem to demonstrate a reverse fear that, somehow, the word “Islamophobia” is being used as a weapon on the law-abiding when people reasonably highlight anxiety over terrorism, or practices within some communities that are regarded as being bad, a view that I believe to be shared throughout the House. That is far removing us from what I think the issue is.

Let me issue a plea to the Secretary of State. He has a rather unenviable task in this respect, but I hope that he will not dismiss the APPG’s report out of hand, because it does not deserve to be dismissed. It is clearly based on good intentions and a wish to identify a way forward. If we stop flying off the handle and disappearing into the most extraordinary and bizarre places—I am sorry to have to say that I felt that that was happening a little bit when I listened to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes)—we may make some progress, and I hope that this debate will facilitate it. That, I think, was the purpose of the APPG’s report, which is why I wrote the foreword.

I cannot get away from the fact that there is a real problem here, and we need to tackle it. This is an area in which we need to show leadership.