Definition of Islamophobia

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mrs Murray. My difficulty is that I cannot do any justice to this debate in two minutes, so please bear with me. I can certainly assure you that I will not take as long as the previous speaker.

I thank the hon. Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) for securing this important and pertinent debate. I thank all individuals and campaign groups who bravely fight to raise awareness of Islamophobia and tackle it in our society on a daily basis. I also thank Bradford Council for Mosques, which this week celebrated a proud 40 years of serving our communities. I want to take this moment to commend its work, commitment and leadership, not just in Bradford but on a regional level.

Sadly, I cannot speak in this debate without feeling a deep sense of frustration and disappointment because, since we last debated this issue, Islamophobia has continued to run rife in our society. It has continued to blight our communities and, sadly, has not got any better. Indeed, the campaign group Tell MAMA last year reported that the UK had seen a rise of almost 700% in Islamophobic incidents. Let us take a minute just to take that in: a 700% rise. That is borne out by the sickening stories that people tell me of Muslim men, women and even children of all ages, in my constituency and across the country, who still face Islamophobic attacks and Islamophobic persecution on a daily basis, who are still subject to vile abuse because of their religion, and who are still told go home—even in the very town where they were born and raised.

It is a sad day when we have my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) reduced to tears for merely trying to do her job. That my hon. Friend, as one of the youngest Members, has come here and told this House that she feels she is unable to carry out her job as a democratically elected Member of Parliament is shocking and disgusting. We must all hang our heads in shame over the appalling treatment of my hon. Friend and Members like her.

At the heart of the issue is the normalisation of Islamophobia in our society. I accept the definition; I will not get into debates about a definition. The reality is the vile poison that has spread. We have seen the creation of a culture that tells people that it is acceptable to discriminate against, to persecute, to abuse Muslims because everyone else seems to be doing it. It has spread because it has been actively promoted in the rhetoric espoused in the media, and by countless public figures who reinforce over and over again a false narrative that Muslims are dangerous, and second-class citizens in our society. It has spread because it has been pushed and endorsed even by our own politicians—even by the Prime Minister, who thinks it is okay to describe Muslim women as “letterboxes” and “bank robbers”—as well as by many others who are in the public eye, talking down Muslims, treating us as a policing and social problem and promoting divisive policies that disproportionately target Muslims, such as Prevent. It has spread because society has normalised it, and that is the real problem.

Indeed, the normalisation of Islamophobia has now reached the point where it has become so commonplace and trivialised that, even if we do not see an active discrimination against Muslims that manifests in the most extreme way as violence and a vitriolic hatred by racists and bigots, we still experience a bias against us that sees Muslims denied employment opportunities, taken less seriously, and talked down to, because it has now become so endemic and so institutionalised that it has become subconscious discrimination. This normalisation is therefore as big a threat as the far right, because it creates an atmosphere on which far-right thugs and fascists feed—an environment in which they feel welcome, and in which bigoted Islamophobia can flourish unchallenged.

Mrs Murray, I am looking at the clock. I have a lot to say, but I will cut it short because of your request. The last thing I will say is this. If we are serious about tackling Islamophobia—this is where I agree with the point made earlier—we must move on from discussing the definition. We have spent the last two years talking about a definition, but that has not stopped Islamophobia. The point is that we need a definition in legislation. At the moment when these matters go to judges in courtrooms, they are not obliged to take it into account; it is a mitigating factor that they may take into account if they so wish. We need to legislate against this, which was the point made earlier by the hon. Member for Peterborough. We must stop talking and start acting—acting to stop religiously and racially motivated hate through legislation and acting, as a society, to challenge and tackle the vile and appalling normalisation of Islamophobia.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray (in the Chair)]

You have three minutes, Afzal Khan.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray. I congratulate the hon. Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) on obtaining this urgent and timely debate. I thank all colleagues who have spoken. It has been a sterling debate. I particularly want to touch on what my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) was saying. I do not know if it will help her, but many of us Muslim women have been abused in a similar format. I have had emails and messages on social media saying that I am, and I quote, words beginning with “f” and “b”, and that I should be sent off to Saudi Arabia to be raped. There are all kinds of interesting words being used and letters written. That does not help, but I hope that she understands.

Islamophobia has been rising in this country and in the western world at a very disturbing rate in recent years. Despite this, as we have heard today, there is still no accepted definition of Islamophobia. There are three million Muslims in the UK—almost 5% of our overall population. Despite Muslims having been present in this country as far back as the 16th century, many believe they are treated as the other. Islamophobia permeates all domains of our society. It threatens education, limits employment prospects and impacts everyday issues, including health, wellbeing and housing.

It is time that we finally address the issue. In 2019, the all-party parliamentary group on British Muslims worked tirelessly to create a definition of Islamophobia that was widely applauded and supported by over 750 organisations. As was mentioned, the definition has been adopted by the Labour party, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, the Scottish National party, the Mayor of London and the Mayor of Greater Manchester. It has been debated in this House and has received cross-party support, so it is disappointing that two years later, we are still urging the Government to do the right thing. That is an absolute denial from this Government. To add insult to injury, they cannot even bring themselves to use the term “Islamophobia”.

In May, the Singh report, resulting from an independent investigation into the handling of Islamophobia by the Conservative party, was published. It was a damning indictment of the discrimination rife in the party. It found that Islamophobia is a serious issue for it, and that the concerns had too easily been denied or dismissed. Indeed, it even looked at the Prime Minister’s comments about women wearing burqas looking like “letterboxes” and “bank robbers”, which we have heard a lot about. It found that Islamophobic incidents of hate rose by 375% in the week after the Prime Minister made those comments. The report called for the party leadership to publish an action plan to set out how it will tackle the failings it found. Will the Minister today acknowledge the scale of the problem? Will he update us on the progress his party has made on the action plan and the new code of conduct?

In my party, I pay tribute to the work of the Labour Muslim Network, which brought to our attention its findings and concerns about Islamophobia. Unlike the leadership of the Conservative party, we are seriously committed to tackling and eradicating Islamophobia, both in our party and in society.

We are often told by critics of the APPG’s definition that it should not imply that some Islamophobia is rooted in racism, yet the evidence says otherwise. Last year, the largest number of referrals to the Government Prevent programme related to far-right extremism. Indeed, the Security Minister warned that far-right terror poses a growing threat, and we all know the consequences of that ideology.

A recent report by Hope Not Hate found that Islamophobia has become the driving force behind the rise of far-right movements in the UK, and that anti-Muslim prejudice has replaced immigration as the key driver of such groups. A poll found that 35% of Britons think that Islam is generally a threat to the British way of life. We see this happening globally, and particularly in western Europe, where there has been a rise of far-right political parties and discriminatory laws passed in France and other countries. Earlier this year, a UN expert concluded at the UN Human Rights Council that Islamophobia has reached epidemic proportions globally, and that Muslims are often targeted because of visible characteristics, such as names, skin colour and clothing.

Many, including this Government, argue that Muslims are not a race. Of course they are not a race, but they are racialised when they are treated as having characteristics that mark them as wholly different. The question when it comes to racism is whether there is a set of attitudes and behaviours that are socially widespread and used to justify discrimination against a particular group. That is why it makes sense to call antisemitism and Islamophobia forms of racism.

I am the chair of the APPG on religion in the media, and last year we conducted an inquiry on religious literacy in the British media. Our report found that media reporting can be sensationalist, and that it reinforces stereotypes and contributes towards discriminatory attitudes. Headlines such as “1 in 5 Brit Muslims’ sympathy for jihadis” and references to “Muslim problems” have real-world consequences. Of course, journalists should be able to question and criticise religion—we live in a democracy that values freedom of speech—but this is about not censorship but transparency. We ask the Government to consider looking at press regulation, because the current system of self-regulation is not working.

Does the Minister at least accept the inescapable reality, which is that Islamophobia has damaging consequences for the life chances of and equalities enjoyed by British Muslim communities? There are people in the UK who are scared to leave their home for fear of verbal or physical attacks. People have withdrawn from public services, with devastating knock-on consequences for their health and education. They feel like outsiders in their own country. That should shame us all.

Last year, in the other place, when the Government were asked about the progress that they had made on adopting a definition, they said that the definition proposed by the APPG was not compatible with the Equality Act 2010, which treats race and religion separately, and

“could have consequences for freedom of speech.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 13 February 2020; Vol. 801, c. 2337.]

Can the Minister tell us whether he or the Government have published for public scrutiny any evidence regarding the legal advice that suggests that the APPG definition is incompatible with the Act? It has been repeatedly noted by experts that the working definition of Islamophobia is not legally binding, and therefore presents no challenges to statute, which takes legal precedence. I ask the Minister not to revert to the predictable, rehearsed responses and platitudes that we have heard from the Government. Each time they do that, they show their disdain for the British Muslim community.

In this debate, the ask is simple: adopt this definition, which has been accepted by cross-party MPs, national groups and hundreds of organisations. In some respects, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood). We need a definition because it will be a starting point for addressing the real issue of Islamophobia that we face in this country. Islamophobia is rising not just in the United Kingdom but in France, Austria and other parts of the western world. Muslims are being treated as though they are fifth columnists—as though they do not belong in this society.

I referred to our inquiries on media coverage. I do not want to restrict free speech—I am sure nobody here wants to—but we ask the Government to look at cases in which the newspapers and others publish pure lies. There is a difference between covering something and carrying blatant lies, like the story about one in five Muslims having sympathy for Isis, or The Sunday Times coverage of a Muslim family who had adopted a child in the east end of London, which turned out to be completely made up.

Those kinds of stories cause people to view Muslims with suspicion and lead to hatred towards Muslims. Let us face it: a lot of people will probably never meet a Muslim in their life, and their understanding of what a Muslim is comes from what they read in the newspaper or watch on the television. Therefore what our media, social media, press and others say is an important part of this debate.

[Imran Hussain]

My hon. Friend makes a really valuable and pertinent point. Does she agree that the situation is far worse than that? We see Islamophobic tropes increasing under the guise of freedom of speech. Would she agree that freedom of speech is not an absolute right? It does not give you a right to promote hatred, and it certainly does not give you a carte-blanche right to attack Muslims.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray (in the Chair)]

Order. Will the hon. Lady sum up now?