Is “Islamaphobia” a real thing?

Can the situation in Britain offer Australians an insight into the way we deal with supposedly racist criticisms of Islam? 

It is difficult to work out sometimes, whether I am going mad(dder) or those who have been put into positions of leadership and power are even more disconnected from the real world than me.  I was reading about crime in the UK and came across this piece of information.  It illustrates, in part at least, my dilemma and confusion. 

While most British and Australian Muslims subscribe to core Western values and are exemplary citizens, the observable reality is that an unsustainably large minority do pose a threat. If we are to look at the situation in Britain, of the 43,000 people on MI5’s terror watch list in 2020, 90 per cent were Islamists. This helps us understand why people outside of government and parliamentary departments are acutely aware of the attempt by the governing classes to sanitise, excuse and deny these threats. That is why there is such fury over the mostly Pakistani Muslim-heritage grooming gangs that raped, pimped and prostituted thousands of young white girls. They come across to many as being a protected species, despite the horrendous nature of their offences.

This is set within the context of the recently published Baroness Casey report that noted how these gangs had not been tackled by the authorities, partly because they had “feared appearing racist”. Note the italics here.  Appearing to be racist, but not being racist.  It is no wonder that people end up seeing the government as downplaying the facts of the crimes and seeking to brush all this under the carpet. To make matters even worse and more insulting to the victims and the communities involved, the government managed, without the slightest hint of shame, to have an MBE  awarded for “services to integration” and “cohesion” to Muhbeen Hussain, who in 2015 called on fellow Muslims in Rotherham (one of the centres where the rape and abuse was carried out) to boycott the police over their “pernicious lie” that they had failed to act on grooming allegations “because of fears of being called racist”. He claimed this was an attempt to “scapegoat” Muslims over the grooming gang scandal. The full report is available online:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/685559d05225e4ed0bf3ce54/National_Audit_on_Group-based_Child_Sexual_Exploitation_and_Abuse.pdf

The report itself highlights how the covering up of the ethnicity and religious backgrounds of the offenders was widespread.  One key data gap highlighted by the report is on ethnicity, which is described as "appalling" and a "major failing".  It says the ethnicity of perpetrators is "shied away from" and still not recorded in two-thirds of cases, meaning it is not possible to conclude at a national level.

However, the report says there is "enough evidence from police data" in three areas - Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire - to show "disproportionate numbers of men from Asian ethnic backgrounds amongst suspects for group-based child sexual exploitation".

It adds that the significant number of perpetrators of Asian ethnicity identified in local reviews and high-profile prosecutions across the country also warrants further examination.   The report also says more effort is needed to explore why it appears perpetrators of Asian and Pakistani ethnicity are disproportionately represented in some areas.

The report went on to say that  "despite reviews, reports and inquiries raising questions about men from Asian or Pakistani backgrounds grooming and sexually exploiting young white girls, the system has consistently failed fully to acknowledge this or collect accurate data so it can be examined effectively."

Is it any wonder, then, that people are deeply shocked and angered by the nature and scale of that scandal? No one, least of all our leaders and police, should be surprised to find that it has become something of a lightning rod for the smouldering rage about immigration, national identity and Islam. This rage cannot be overestimated, as evidenced in the protests and clashes with police at a hotel in Essex.  The focus of that fracas was an asylum seeker, who had crossed the Channel on a boat, only to be charged with the sexual assault of a schoolgirl.   While violence is generally not to be condoned in the pursuit of justice, one can be forgiven for assuming that the people of Essex no longer have confidence in the authorities to ensure a just outcome is reached. The accused man in this case is an Ethiopian and fears of another cover-up are driving this rebellious response.

This is a standard Woke approach (read Social Justice Theories on race) to claims of racism.  As has been highlighted by some in the parliament, “the police, prosecutors and courts are already using the Public Order Act to criminalise speech and actions that offend Muslims”.  The offence is one of offending and not genuine racial vilification.  Tory MP Nick Timothy pointed out one example.  The Centre for Media Monitoring, an offshoot of the Muslim Council of Britain, claimed that accurate reports of the Manchester Arena bomber yelling Islamist slogans were “Islamophobic”. They were not denying the accuracy of what was reported, just that it managed in upset some Muslims. 

Once again, context is important.  There is a working group Chaired by former Conservative MP and attorney general Dominic Grieve KC, which has been tasked with coming up with a definition of “Islamophobia”.  It has been accused of being a secretive quango that has already formed its conclusions before the specially selected information is collected.   Grieve has already commented on the report, endorsed by Labour, declaring that Islamophobia was a “type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness” and called the discussion of “grooming gangs” an example of “anti-Muslim racism”.

An example of the political reshaping of the report is evidenced by the inclusion of Baroness Shaista Gohir among the working group’s members. She has authored a report linking ‘Islamophobia’ to the media reporting on the grooming-gangs scandal. The ‘disproportionate media coverage being given to British Pakistani offenders’, she argued in 2013, enabled ‘right-wing populist groups’ to exploit the issue to ‘fuel racism and Islamophobia’ even though this runs in the face of the court records.  That report can be downloaded at https://www.mwnuk.co.uk/go_files/resources/UnheardVoices.pdf

None of this is new.  Since the emergence of Black Lives Matter, with its insistence on defunding police, ‘only whites can be racists”, taking the knee and its false claims of race being a matter of DNA, criticism of Islamic beliefs and practices as a form of racial hostility have transformed and complicated any discussion of Islam. Why? The confusion occurs partially because British law, specifically the ‘Waddington Amendment’ of the Public Order Act 1986, explicitly protects the right to criticise religion. It states that ‘nothing in this part’ should be interpreted as prohibiting ‘discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents’.

An Islamophobia definition could well be a breaking point for the wider British community because it would be seen as silencing of what is increasingly seen as an urgent and legitimate public debate over such matters. People are rightly concerned because the claims of “Islamophobia” seem to be more about stopping all criticism of Islam, the religion and Muslims in particular.  What that means in reality is that comments and criticisms that do not meet with the approval of the champions of Social Justice Theories and their supporters, who have managed to find their way onto these government quangos.

Information from the Times of London, the BBC and Spiked.

Bishop Michael Hough                                                                           July 2025