Islamophobia Awareness Month Debate
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Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi
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Islamophobia Awareness Month
Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) on securing this important debate and on his tireless work. We have been here before many times. Islamophobia is not a new phenomenon but one that has sadly entrenched itself into significant segments of our society. As the Muslim Council of Britain noted, 70% of Muslims have experienced religious-based prejudice in the past 12 months and just under half of all religious hate crimes recorded by police in 2020-21 were Islamophobic. I also highlight that abuse can happen to Muslims or even those perceived as looking like Muslims, such as turbaned Sikhs like myself.
I personally called on the Prime Minister to do more over two years ago, and asked for an apology for his derogatory and racist remarks describing already vulnerable Muslim women as looking like bank robbers and “letter boxes”. Those comments led to a 375% spike in hate crimes and, more widely, showed that to openly abuse Muslim women was acceptable. All that was without an apology, except for a half-hearted one during the heat of an election and only when pressed to do so. That is characteristic of the Government response—denial, delay and avoidance.
Given the increased prevalence of such Islamophobic incidents in the Conservative party, where is the independent inquiry into Islamophobia, as promised on national television by the Prime Minister and his now Health Secretary? In fact, when the all-party group on British Muslims, of which I am proud to be a vice-chair, agreed on a definition of Islamophobia, all major parties accepted and adopted it with one notable exception: the Conservative party. We cannot simply accept the unacceptable status quo. If we do, we fail millions of Muslims because, without action, this is the message that Muslim communities are hearing.
I hope that the Minister, for whom I have time, has come with more than just warm words, because the persistent failure of the Government, particularly the Prime Minister, has real consequences and fails the people of our country.