The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has urged the UK government to adopt the contentious definition of Islamophobia proposed in 2018 by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for British Muslims in comments made to Middle East Eye.
As per the Middle East Eye, earlier, it emerged that the government is planning to create a council to help draw up an official definition for anti-Muslim discrimination, indicating it has rowed back plans to adopt the APPG definition.
“The Muslim Council of Britain welcomes the government’s interest in tackling Islamophobia, but rather than reinventing the wheel, we urge them to adopt the APPG definition,” the MCB told MEE.
The Telegraph reported on Monday night that the planned 16-strong council within the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government will advise the government on tackling Islamophobia.
It will also work as an official, though non-legally binding, definition of anti-Muslim discrimination.
The previous Conservative government adopted an official definition of antisemitism, leading to calls for a similar definition of Islamophobia.
But the 2018 APPG for British Muslims’ proposed definition, which the Conservative government rejected, was widely criticised as potentially stifling criticism of Islam.
The definition, adopted by Labour in opposition, characterises Islamophobia as “a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.”
The MCB said: “We support any initiative to examine and deal with the very real challenge if Islamophobia that blights our society. The violence we saw last year from the post-Southport riots and the ongoing hatred against Muslims demonstrates starkly why the challenge is real. Despite attacks on Muslim lives, those who have no interest in protecting Muslims will claim that such moves are blasphemy laws by stealth.”
Labour was expected to formally adopt the definition upon entering government, but the decision to create a new council indicates that it has rowed back on the definition, and could aim to adapt it or formulate a new one entirely.
In September 2024, faith minister Lord Wajid Khan said that “the definition proposed by the APPG is not in line with the Equality Act 2010, which defines race in terms of colour, nationality and national or ethnic origins”.
He added: “The Government’s approach to tackling religious hatred would never inhibit the lawful right to freedom of expression.”
In the summer of 2024, far-right riots erupted across Britain and involved a spate of racist and anti-Muslim mob attacks.
Khan noted that much of the violence “was rooted in anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant hatred”.
Dominic Grieve, the former Conservative attorney general, has been reportedly “recommended” to chair the new council.
Grieve previously chaired the Citizens’ UK Commission on Islam, aimed at promoting dialogue between Muslims and non-Muslims, and wrote the foreword to the contentious APPG report on Islamophobia in 2018, calling it “food both for thought and positive action”.
He told the Telegraph on Monday that he has not been formally approached but said if he could help do “something constructive requested by any government on a non-party political basis I am willing to consider it.”
Grieve added that “defining Islamophobia is extremely difficult for perfectly valid reasons relating to freedom of expression”, but noted that “perfectly law-abiding Muslims going about their business and well integrated into society are suffering discrimination and abuse”.
The government is understood to be proposing a similar council on antisemitism.
