Islam
Policy Exchange Insider Labour MP Who Attacked Islamophobia Definition Privately Told Baroness Warsi Think Tank is ‘Dangerous’
A senior Labour MP and co-author of a new Policy Exchange report attacking attempts to define Islamophobia privately told former Conservative Cabinet Minister Baroness Sayeeda Warsi that the Conservative think tank is a "dangerous" outfit with extremist tendencies that he is trying to "temper" with his presence.
The conversation between Baroness Warsi and Khalid Mahmood, Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, came to light in leaked WhatsApp messages seen exclusively by Byline Times.
Mahmood is currently a senior fellow at Policy Exchange. According to the parliamentary register of interests, he received regular payments from the think tank between April 2019 and March 2022, totalling more than £50,000.
His private criticisms of Policy Exchange cohere with previous reports by Byline Times revealing the connections of multiple staffers with far-right anti-Muslim and antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Several Policy Exchange fellows, including the co-authors of the new Islamophobia report, are linked to a supporter of the so-called ‘Great Replacement’ theory which has inspired several far-right terrorist attacks, including in Christchurch and Texas.
The think tank’s current head of security once described “Zionists” as “the enemy” alongside all the mainstream political parties.
Michael Gove, Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary, gives a speech at a Policy Exchange event. Photo: Tommy London /Alamy
Policy Exchange
The messages seen by Byline Times were sent to a WhatsApp group of senior cross-party Muslim politicians in the UK. They contain a series of heated exchanges between Mahmood and Baroness Warsi, a former Conservative Party chair.
The private messages were prompted by Mahmood’s co-authorship of a new report published by Policy Exchange – 'A definition of Islamophobia? Old Problems Remain, As New Problems Emerge’ – which states that Islamophobia is being weaponised to silence free speech.
In a foreword to the report, former Home Secretary Sajid Javid equates a working definition of Islamophobia created by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims with “blasphemy law by the backdoor” that would also potentially undermine counter-extremism work.
This was denied in 2019 by Labour MP Wes Streeting as Co-Chair of the APPG on British Muslims. At the time, both the then Chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council to Number 10, Martin Hewitt, and then Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, the Metropolitan Police’s Head of Counter-Terrorism Policing, said that they believed basic refinements of the APPG definition would be sufficient.
In the WhatsApp exchanges, Mahmood told Baroness Warsi multiple times that, if he had not joined Policy Exchange – one of the most influential lobbying groups around the UK Government – it would be a far worse organisation.
He claimed that he only joined the right-wing think tank to “keep an eye” on it from within, due to its “dangerous” nature.
Keeping an Eye
In the messages, Mahmood vigorously disputes Baroness Warsi’s criticisms of his role in the Policy Exchange report. Baroness Warsi complains that Mahmood had not raised his concerns directly with the APPG on British Muslims despite several invitations to do so. Mahmood rejects this criticism.
“At least twice I have personally asked you to engage and you did not take up the open invite offered to all parliamentarians to submit evidence,” the peer writes in one message.
“And when I have addressed specific issues you’ve given me some wierd [sic] answer about how you working with PX [Policy Exchange] is in the best interests of the community because they (PX) would be far worse without you tempering/keeping an eye on them.”
In his responses to Baroness Warsi, Mahmood does not deny this conversation.
Instead, he writes: “I respect you have your opinions with PX's report. Although moving forward, I am looking to having a more meaningful conversation with you.”
In a further message, Baroness Warsi writes: “I saw you a few weeks ago at the Big Iftaar and I spoke about this very issue. You didn’t ask for a discussion nor give any indication that you were interested in working collaboratively.”
She also writes that she was told “PX would be far worse without you being there and you needed to be on the inside. You gave the clear impression PX were dangerous and they [sic] you were keeping an eye on them – at no point did you defend PX”.
Neither Baroness Sayeeda Warsi nor Khalid Mahmood responded to Byline Times’ requests for comment.
Although Mahmood's private characterisation of Policy Exchange as “dangerous” is at odds with his public stance, it is an accurate description of the think tank’s affiliations.
'Great Replacement’ Ties
Two of Mahmood’s co-authors of the new Policy Exchange report – Sir John Jenkins and Dr Martyn Frampton – have worked closely with Dr Lorenzo Vidino, a ‘white genocide’ believer who once worked for the same far-right conspiracy theorist whom former Prime Minister David Cameron called an “idiot” for describing Birmingham as a Muslim "no-go zone".
Dr Frampton also collaborated with Dr Vidino on a major anthology about the Muslim Brotherhood published in 2013, to which he was a contributor.
Former UK diplomat Sir John Jenkins spoke alongside Dr Vidino at a 2017 event hosted by him at George Washington University, where he heads up the programme on extremism. Dr Vidino was previously commissioned by Sir John to produce a paper and consultative briefing for the UK Government review of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Dr Frampton was also hosted by Dr Vidino in 2018 at George Washington University to speak about his own book on the Muslim Brotherhood.
As Byline Times has previously revealed, Dr Vidino is on record advocating the far-right Great Replacement theory – an ethno-nationalist theory warning that an indigenous (white) European population is being replaced by non-European immigrants through a programme of reverse-colonisation, according to the Counter Extremism Project.
In 2005, when asked if Europeans were witnessing “the end of Europe” by FrontPage magazine (the far-right publication of anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and anti-black activist David Horowitz), he said: “Europe as we knew it 30 years ago is long gone. Demography doesn’t lie: in a couple of decades non-ethnic Europeans will represent the majority of the population in many European cities and a large percentage of them will be Muslim.”
According to Georgetown University’s Bridge Initiative, Dr Vidino is well-known for promoting “conspiracy theories about the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe and the United States” and “is connected to numerous anti-Muslim think tanks in the United States and Europe, and has published in various anti-Muslim outlets”.
From 2002 to 2005, Dr Vidino was a senior analyst at Steve Emerson’s Investigative Project on Terrorism, identified by the Centre for American Progress (CAP) as a top player in a global anti-Muslim “misinformation” network “orchestrating the majority of misinformation about Islam and Muslims in America today”.
Emerson played a leading role in establishing the Muslim Brotherhood conspiracy theory through cherry-picking and misrepresentations of key documents. According to CAP’s online database of anti-Muslim hate groups, he has a reputation “for fabricating evidence to substantiate his ravings about Muslim extremism”.
In 2015, Emerson was notoriously ridiculed by then Prime Minister David Cameron as “a complete idiot” for calling Birmingham a Muslim-controlled "no-go zone".
Byline Times also previously revealed that in 2010 Policy Exchange’s head of security and extremism, Dr Paul Stott, described “Zionists” as “the enemy” alongside Islamists, “Neo-Conservatives, New Labour [and] the Con-Dems”.
In 2021, Dr Stott was commissioned by the Sweden Democrats, a neo-Nazi political party boycotted by Israeli Government officials due to its antisemitic tendencies, to produce a report claiming the existence of a conspiratorial alliance between the Muslim Brotherhood and European political leaders.
These extremist affiliations fundamentally discredit the integrity of Policy Exchange’s research on Islamophobia and Muslim communities.
Policy Exchange did not respond to requests for comment.
‘The Prayer Ban at Michaela Community School Will Not Set a Landmark Precedent’
The High Court’s ruling that a ban on ritualistic prayer at Michaela Community School in Wembley is lawful – following a legal challenge by a Muslim student – has created a storm of controversy in recent days.
Muslims and human rights advocates have bemoaned the outcome, with many seeing it as a flagrant attack on the right to manifest one's religious belief in public, particularly if you’re a Muslim.
Those on the right of the Conservative Party have celebrated the ruling as a win for ‘British values’ – a concept they seem to believe excludes Islam.
Despite their differences, there is one idea that these groups share: the belief that this is a landmark case that establishes a strong legal precedent.
However, as a lawyer with 20 years’ experience and the CEO of the Islamophobia Response Unit, I argue that this is not the case. In fact, I believe that this ruling will soon, and for good reason, fade into distant memory.
Katharine Birbalsingh, founder and headteacher of Michaela Community School. Photo: Paul Davey/Alamy
Last year, a Muslim pupil at Michaela Community School decided to challenge the school’s ban on ritualistic prayer, arguing that it indirectly discriminated against the school’s Muslim cohort, which makes up around 50% of its 700 students.
Some right-wing commentators celebrated the prayer ban. Some also praised headteacher Katherine Birbalsingh for imposing it.
The pupil’s case was, from the beginning, a very narrow one.
Although Muslims are required to pray five times per day, she accepted that strict school rules meant that she would not be able to fulfil this obligation. Nevertheless, she argued that the ban on ritualistic prayer violated her right to religious belief under the European Convention on Human Rights. That it indirectly discriminated against Muslim pupils under the Equality Act of 2010. And that it failed to have 'due regard’ to the need to eliminate discrimination, also under the Equality Act.
In the end, the court surprisingly rejected all three of the pupil’s claims, essentially on the basis that she could, if she chose to, attend a different school that did not hinder her religious practices.
The court said that the pupil "at the very least impliedly accepted, when she enrolled at the school, that she would be subject to restrictions on her ability to manifest her religion”. But this was a strange argument to make considering that the ban was imposed after the girl enrolled at the school.
Michaela Community School’s well-documented strict behavioural regime is so unique to that institution that other schools in England and Wales simply could not rely upon it to deny prayer facilities to their pupils.
The High Court heard an abundance of evidence detailing the strict policies that provided the context making the prayer ban possible. To give just a few examples, pupils are required to move around the school’s building, and enter and exit all rooms, in a single-file formation.
Michaela Community School also maintains a 'rule of four no more’, which means that pupils are not permitted to socialise in groups of more than four.
Lunch break is set at a rigid 25 minutes, and pupils are not allowed to move freely around the school premises during this time.
Constraints on space mean that pupils are not able to move to their next lesson at once, so that the start and end times of each lesson are staggered on a minute-by-minute basis, with movement around the school being heavily coordinated.
These examples are just the tip of the iceberg of what can quite comfortably be described as draconian behavioural regulations. Given these rigid demands on pupils’ time and movements, it is not difficult to see how finding time to engage in group-based, ritualistic prayer at specific times throughout the day – as is required by Islamic precepts – becomes very difficult, if not impossible.
The school contends that these rules are the beating heart of the school’s ethos. This point matters greatly because, if the court had ruled in favour of the girl who brought the case, this would have meant the removal of the prayer ban. Such a decision would have caused widespread disruption to the school’s rigorous – and, some might argue, excessive – behavioural codes of conduct. Muslim students needing to pray would have to violate Birbalsingh’s policies aimed at regimenting student movement around the school.
The court took all of this into consideration and the judgment’s balance tipped in favour of the school. But nowhere else in Britain are you likely to find another case of this nature. It is therefore not a 'landmark’ case because the deciding factor largely came down to the history of Michaela Community School’s uniquely austere rules.
Rather than standing as an example for others to draw upon in order to ban prayer facilities, this case and this school stand very much alone.
Majid Iqbal is the CEO of the Islamophobia Response Unit
‘Keir Starmer’s Condemnation of “Terror” in Gaza is a Step Forward — But Just the Beginning’
During the past 20 years, I've reported many times on the violence and prejudice Palestinians have faced as a result of Israeli occupation. And in 2014, for revealing the role of Gaza's gas in Israel's military assaults my contract at The Guardian was terminated.
It's in that context that I believe Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer's recent statements calling for an immediate end to Israeli violence that is killing "innocent Palestinians" represent an important shift. Given that he is likely to be the next British prime minister, the imperative is to leverage this development and hold Labour to it.
Starmer told an audience in London last week that he condemned the “fear and terror” experienced by starving Muslims in Gaza in what was his strongest language yet about the conflict.
Speaking at an Iftar last Thursday hosted by the Concordia Forum, a trans-Atlantic network of Muslim leaders, Starmer explicitly criticised Israel’s policy of forced starvation in Gaza, recognising “those around the world whose fast is not through choice, but through force.” He added: “We know there are Muslims in Gaza who will be mourning rather than enjoying this month. Families who will not have food around the table this evening. The sound of fear and terror rather than laughter and singing. Empty spaces around the table where their loved ones once sat.”
Starmer also demanded a total cessation of violence in Gaza, including an immediate ceasefire and a “permanent end to the fighting.” In addition to demanding that Israeli hostages are returned to their families, he also urged “an end to the killing of innocent Palestinians. No equivocation – that must happen now".
Starmer also said that the planned Israeli military incursion into Rafah must be blocked, while international aid going into Gaza is resumed: “It is absolutely imperative now that humanitarian aid gets into Gaza rapidly, without disruption or blockade. And any offensive into Rafah cannot be allowed to happen.”
Starmer emphasised British Muslims’ positive contributions to UK society and the economy, pointing out that “for generations, Muslims have made Britain a better place. A massive contribution to our social fabric: from our NHS to schools, charities to business.”
He also directly addressed the rising trend in anti-Muslim hatred. Paying tribute to the British Muslim community, Starmer articulated the Labour Party’s zero-tolerance commitment: “I know many people will also be concerned about the sickening rise in Islamophobia we have seen in our country. So let me be clear. A Labour government will never turn a blind eye to that prejudice.”
Commenting on the importance of Ramadan, the Labour leader gave thanks for “the solidarity, community and clarity” of this holy month and for the “generosity of Muslims during Ramadan” which “reminds me of the hugely powerful teachings that the Muslim community invites the world to see during this special time.”
‘A Seismic Shift’
Starmer’s language at the Concordia event which I attended as part of the organising team represents a seismic shift in the Labour Party’s approach both to the Middle East conflict and to questions around anti-Muslim prejudice in Britain.
Many will see this shift as too little, too late. They are right. More than 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, while 2.2 million Gazans are facing severe food shortages with over a million experiencing “catastrophic hunger”.
This shift, however, did not come out of the blue - but has been the result of concerted efforts behind the scenes by civil society leaders.
Starmer’s statements demonstrate that Israel has now become increasingly isolated from some of its closest international allies, with the political spectrum across the UK attempting to disassociate from Israel’s current policy.
With a Labour government seen as all but inevitable this year by most political commentators, the challenge for civil society and British Muslim communities is simple. Comprehensive disengagement from Labour, as some activist campaigns within parts of the Muslim communities have demanded, will not help Palestinians but instead guarantee the total retraction of Muslim voters from any semblance of meaningful UK political influence. That would leave a vacuum in government which emboldens potentially dangerous and destructive policies.
The only viable alternative, in my view, is for British Muslim communities to ensure through strategic lines of engagement that the leaders of the incoming government are incentivised to listen to British public opinion, which overwhelmingly is supportive of an end to Israeli’s onslaught in Gaza, as well as the restoration of Palestinian rights and statehood based on international law.
It’s the Conservative Party Which Most ‘Undermines British Values’, Say Voters
A majority of British voters now believe that it's the Conservative Party which truly doesn’t understand British values, an exclusive new poll commissioned by Byline Times suggests.
Rishi Sunak's Government this week set out its new definition of “extremism” with new restrictions to be placed on individuals and organisations it perceives to be “undermining British values”.
However, new polling conducted this week by pollsters We Think for this paper found that 61% of those surveyed do not believe the Conservative Party “understands British values”, with a further 58% saying the same of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
By contrast, a majority of those surveyed said that the Labour Party (57%) and its leader Keir Starmer (56%) do in fact understand British values.
Those surveyed were also presented with a list of 21 organisations, political parties, companies and individuals, including the Muslim Council of Britain and Britain First and asked to select all those they believed to be “undermining British values”.
Among the options offered, the Conservative Party was the most picked, with 31% saying the party undermines British values, followed by 29% who picked ‘the Government’.
The third most picked organisation was the Muslim Council of Britain, which was selected by 23% of those surveyed.
Byline Times exclusively revealed his week that the MCB, which represents mosques and Islamic organisations around the UK, had been removed from Michael Gove’s draft list of “extremist” groups amid legal fears among officials.
The list of those set to be targeted by ministers was leaked to this paper on the eve of Gove’s statement to Parliament.
It prompted a formal Government leak inquiry, with Gove telling MPs that such leaks were "fundamentally a challenge to the effective operation of government”.
Voters Want Conservatives to Hand Back Hester Cash
Voters were also asked what they think about the Conservative party’s continued refusal to hand back the £15 million they have received in donations from the businessman Frank Hester.
The Guardian revealed this week that Hester had called for the MP Diane Abbott to be shot, as she made him “want to hate all black women”.
Sunak's Government initially defended Hester, before eventually admitting that his comments had been “racist and wrong”.
However, despite admitting this, the party is still refusing to hand back the money received from Hester, with the Prime Minister telling MPs he was proud to have received donations from him.
This refusal to return the money puts the party firmly out of step with the British public, according to our poll, which found that 63% of those surveyed believe the party should return the money.
The Hester case has also helped to highlight the broader issue of party funding. Hester made the donations to the Conservatives after having received tens of millions of pounds in Government contracts, via his company TPP.
Asked where those who donate to political parties should be banned from receiving Government contracts, 70% of those surveyed agreed, compared to just 30% who disagreed.
FBI Warns Gaza War Will Stoke Domestic Radicalization “For Years to Come”
In the wake of Israel’s war on Gaza, the intelligence community and the FBI believe that the threat of Islamic terrorist attack inside the United States has increased to its highest point since 9/11, according to testimony of senior officials. “It’s long been the case that the public and the media are quick to declare one threat over and gone, while they obsess over whatever’s shiny and new,” FBI Director Christopher Wray told cadets at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point earlier this month. Wray said that though many “commentators” claimed that the threat from foreign terrorist organizations was over, “a rogue’s gallery of foreign terrorist organizations [are calling] for attacks against Americans and our allies.”
Though Wray cites Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, and ISIS as making new threats against America, he said that the bureau was actually more focused on “homegrown” terrorists — Americans — as the primary current threat. “Our most immediate concern has been that individuals or small groups will draw twisted inspiration from the events in the Middle East to carry out attacks here at home,” he said at West Point.
Soon after the Gaza war began, Wray appeared before the House Committee on Homeland Security and said that homegrown violent extremists, or HVEs, posed the single greatest immediate foreign terrorist threat to the United States.
According to the FBI, while inspired by the actions of foreign terrorist groups, HVEs are lone actors or members of small cells disconnected from material support of the established extremist groups they draw inspiration from. Though Wray isn’t willing to discount the likelihood of a 9/11 magnitude attack — in fact, at West Point he cites the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel as the equivalent of an attack on the United States that would have killed nearly 40,000 people in the single day — he says small-scale and “lone wolf” attacks are more likely. “Over the past five months, our Counterterrorism Division agents have been urgently running down thousands of reported threats stemming from the [Israel-Hamas] conflict,” Wray said on March 4.
“The FBI assesses HVEs as the greatest, most immediate international terrorism threat to the homeland,” Wray said in his November testimony to Congress, adding that “HVEs are people located and radicalized to violence primarily in the United States, who are not receiving individualized direction from [foreign terrorist organizations] but are inspired by FTOs, including the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham (“ISIS”) and al-Qa’ida and their affiliates, to commit violence.”
Gen. Gregory M. Guillot, commander of U.S. Northern Command, which is responsible for North America, echoed Wray’s concern in his testimony this month before Congress. “The likelihood of a significant terrorist attack in the homeland has almost certainly increased since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas conflict. Multiple terrorist groups — including ISIS and al-Qa’ida — have leveraged the crisis to generate propaganda designed to inspire followers to conduct attacks, including in North America. The increasingly diffuse nature of the transnational terrorist threat challenges our law enforcement partners’ ability to detect and disrupt attack plotting against the homeland and leaves us vulnerable to surprise.” Guillot’s counterpart in U.S. Southern Command, responsible for the Caribbean, Central America, and South America, Gen. Laura Richardson, did not raise the domestic terror threat during her congressional testimony.
Though the FBI is focused on homegrown threats, Wray does say that after months of chasing down an influx in leads, his counterterrorism division has started “to see those numbers level off,” adding that “we expect that October 7 and the conflict that’s followed will feed a pipeline of radicalization and mobilization for years to come.”
Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence and the highest-ranking U.S. intelligence official, agreed with Wray’s view, testifying this week, “The crisis has galvanized violence by a range of actors around the world.”
“While it is too early to tell, it is likely that the Gaza conflict will have a generational impact on terrorism,” she warned, setting the stage for a renewed priority of Middle East terrorism at the very time when much of the intelligence apparatus had shifted to a different type of domestic terrorist threat after January 6. In the Director of National Intelligence’s annual threat assessment, praise for the October 7 attack by the Nordic Resistance Movement, a European neo-Nazi group, was cited as evidence of the spread of extremist ideology. No direct neo-Nazi plots, however, were identified.
The Intercept also recently wrote of the homeland security agencies’ expanded interest in domestic extremism, specifically targeting anarchists and leftists in the wake of Aaron Bushnell’s death.
Among the foreign threats raised during his West Point address, Wray mentioned Hezbollah support and praise for Hamas posing “a constant threat to U.S. interests in the region,” Al Qaeda issuing its most specific call to attack the United States in the last five years, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or Yemen, calling on jihadists to attack Americans “and Jewish people,” and ISIS urging its followers to target Jewish communities in both Europe and the United States.
To embellish the domestic threat picture, earlier this week, Wray said that immigrant crossings at America’s southern border were extremely concerning, with foreign terrorist organizations infiltrating into the country through drug smuggling networks. “There is a particular network that has — some of the overseas facilitators of the smuggling network have — ISIS ties that we’re very concerned about, and we’ve been spending enormous amounts of effort with our partners investigating,” he said.
Picking up where Wray left off, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told Fox News this week that illegal immigration was one of the greatest catalysts for America’s imperilment. “The terror threat to this country is enormous.” Cruz said. “It is greater than it’s ever been at any time since September 11th.”
Other members of Congress have similarly seized on Wray’s warnings about the Hamas threat to push for their own policy objectives. As Wired reported this week, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chair Mike Turner, R-Ohio, met with lawmakers in December in an attempt to dissuade them from initiating reforms that could cripple the FISA 702 authority, a law enshrining the intelligence community’s ability to conduct warrantless surveillance.
According to the report, Turner “presented an image of Americans protesting the war in Gaza while implying possible ties between the protesters and Hamas, an allegation that was used to illustrate why surveillance reforms may prove detrimental to national security.”
In the past three months, the only Hamas-connected prosecution carried out by the Department of Justice appears to be the arrest of Karrem Nasr, a U.S. citizen who allegedly traveled from Egypt to Kenya in an effort to wage jihad with the Somalia-related terrorist group al-Shabab. “Karrem Nasr, motivated by the heinous terrorist attack perpetrated by Hamas on October 7, devoted himself to waging violent jihad against America and its allies,” the U.S. attorney’s office wrote in a press release, saying that they had been able to disrupt his plot.
The post FBI Warns Gaza War Will Stoke Domestic Radicalization “For Years to Come” appeared first on The Intercept.
‘I Attended the Peace Symposium to Learn the Real Message of Islam’
It was a real privilege to have been invited to this year’s National Peace Symposium. This annual event of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is aimed at promoting a deeper understanding of Islam and other faiths and bringing communities together for the cause of peace. The Symposium took place on 9 March, the eve of the start of Ramadan.
My host, the genial Adeel Shah, who is one of Britain’s youngest Imams met me at the entrance of the Baitul Futah Mosque in Morden, London, the largest in Western Europe and the administrative headquarters of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community UK, where Adeel Shah serves in the Press and Media Office. I was one of more than 1200 guests from 28 countries who gathered for the 18th Peace Symposium.
The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community was founded in 1889 to revive the peaceful teachings of Islam. It is dedicated to establishing peace and protecting the basic human rights of all. With nationalism and the relentless desire for power fuelling conflict around the world, as peace-making efforts fall deeper into crisis and situations deteriorate, there could not be a more important time to unite for the cause of peace.
As a white, atheist woman, I know little about the Muslim faith, other than from having worked with Adeel Shah before. Through misleading headlines, harmful stereotypes and inflammatory language, for decades, the UK media has demonised and vilified Muslims.
If I took notice of such incendiary and inaccurate reports, I may be inclined to think those who practice the faith are people to avoid. If I listened to right-wing politicians like Lee Anderson and Suella Braverman, who deliberately whip up anti-Muslim sentiment, again, I might hold unjust views against Islam. Amid this toxic political and media ecosystem, it is hardly surprising that British people are three times more likely to hold prejudiced views against Islam than other religions.
Following Lee Anderson’s accusation that the London Mayor Sadiq Khan is being controlled by ‘Islamists,’ Islamophobia within factions of the Conservative Party, and the wider country, was finally given the attention it merits. Rishi Sunak’s hastily arranged address on extremism outside Number 10 was seen by some as hypocritical, given the party’s – and its media backers’ – connections to Islamophobia. “It was a masterclass in gaslighting and made a new art form of rank hypocrisy,” said Caroline Lucas, Green MP.
But the National Peace Symposium 2024 was a world apart from the bickering and double standards at Westminster. What was especially encouraging was the notable cross-political party attendance.
Dame Siobhain McDonagh, Labour MP for Mitcham and Morden, Jonathan Lord, Conservative MP for Woking and Vice Chair of All Party Parliamentary Group for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, and Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, all gave speeches on the urgent need for global cooperation. Dame McDonagh spoke of the suffering and oppression taking place in Gaza. She said the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community has been at the forefront in calling for peace throughout the conflict, and that the worldwide Head and Caliph of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, His Holiness, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, has reached out to world leaders and presented solutions on how to establish peace. Jonathan Lord shared similar gratitude for the Community’s efforts for establishing peace worldwide. Noting the devastating conflict in Sudan, Yemen, Ukraine and Gaza, Ed Davey said Britain needs to double down its efforts to play its role in bringing an end to the conflicts.
The event’s keynote speech was delivered by His Holiness Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad. Through sermons, lectures, and literary works, His Holiness is a tireless advocate for championing the cause of peace and for religious harmony.
The Caliph called for ceasefires in both Gaza and Ukraine. “Political leaders and those who have access to policymakers must take a long-term view of what is in the best interests of mankind, rather than being blinded by selfish desires to assert their superiority over others,” he said. His Holiness also dismissed the misconception of the conflict in the Middle East being a ‘religious war,’ instead stating that it was a “geopolitical and territorial conflict” with religion providing a solution.
The more I listened to the speeches and spent time with people who worship this inclusive, peace-orientated religion, and those who partner with the Community to promote their work and messages, the sadder I became about the way in which Islamophobia, and conspiracies about Muslims are so well-established within sections of British society.
What was disappointing was the lack of mainstream media presence. Surely, as war devastates communities around the world, national newspapers and news stations have a duty to cover such vital peace-making events? The lack of national mainstream media interest in the Peace Symposium 2024, for me, said a lot about the challenges Muslims face in Britain, and the wider lack of peace-making progress.
Charlene Maines, a Conservative Councillor on the East Hampshire District Council, where Adeel Shah also serves as a Councillor, was attending the event for the first time. Charlene shared my views on the importance of the Peace Symposium at an educational level. “People are afraid of religion. It’s all about education. Once we are informed about a religion, we can come to our own conclusions about it. That’s why this event is so important. You can literally feel the connection in the venue,” Charlene said.
I came away from the National Peace Symposium feeling honoured that I had listened to the Caliph of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and others, deliver rousing yet logical speeches on achieving global peace. I felt grateful to have spent time with people who practice and support the message of a religion of tolerance, peace, and universalism.
If only others from a broadly ignorant media and certain Parliamentarians would do the same.
Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is a freelance journalist.
‘Who Are the Extremists Who Would Tear Us Apart?’
For the past five months much has been said about our movement, which has consistently called for a ceasefire and an end to the genocide in Gaza. As British citizens of faith or none, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jews, sons and daughters of Holocaust survivors, school children, university students, NHS staff and many more have been maligned as hate marchers, mobs, thugs, and even "Islamists" allegedly subverting democracy.
It's time to set the record straight.
Our cause is straightforward: we stand against the ongoing genocide in Gaza, where 30,000 Palestinians, a third of them children, have been killed. These are the findings of the International Court of Justice, which ruled that there is a plausible case of genocide for Israel to answer.
Our demands are simple: an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, facilitation of basic needs to prevent mass man-induced starvation, and the complete lifting of the 17-year siege on Gaza.
We also call for an end to the illegal occupation of Palestine and accountability for those responsible for heinous crimes against humanity.
These demands resonate with the majority of the British public, as highlighted by a recent YouGov poll which found that 66% of the public surveyed supported an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Listening to Rishi Sunak deliver his speech on Friday, one would think there had been an outbreak of anarchy, chaos and unruliness hitting the streets of the UK. However, the Metropolitan Police acknowledged that our protests have been orderly, disciplined, well-organised, and professionally handled.
Despite dozens of protests involving an estimated three million participants during the past five months, only a very small number of people have been charged. It's not exactly what you would expect if Jihadi-supporting anarchists were storming London every weekend.
But the Government and the Labour Party appear to be overlooking these facts and dismissing the concerns of ordinary citizens who have come out in solidarity with the Palestinians. Instead, there seems to be a crackdown on public protests, freedom of speech, congregation, and political dissent.
The Prime Minister's use of fear, scaremongering, and dog-whistle Islamophobia to vilify protestors is not only outrageous, but indicative of a concerning disregard for political differences.
While Sunak urges the country to “face down the extremists who would tear us apart”, the irony lies in this Government's failure to address divisive rhetoric within its own ranks.
This most recently included comments by the Conservative former Deputy Chair Lee Anderson, who claimed that theLondon Mayor Sadiq Khan is controlled by his “Islamist” friend. And when former Home Secretary Suella Braverman wrote in the Telegraph that “the Islamists, the extremists, and the antisemites are in charge now”.
At the recent Conservative Political Action Conference in the US, Nigel Farage — alongside former Prime Minister Liz Truss — claimed that “radical Islam is becoming mainstream in British politics” and projected that “by the 2029 general election, we will have a radical Islamic party represented in Westminster”. Sunak had nothing to say of Truss’ appearance at the event.
All of these examples raise questions about the Government’s commitment to unity.
Sunak's attempt to deflect the real issues behind public discontent is evident. Our marches include people who feel let down in various aspects of life, not just those calling for justice in Palestine. Concerns about inadequate healthcare, unaffordable housing, the climate emergency, political corruption, and wealth inequality coexist with our collective call for justice.
This Government, while claiming to champion democracy, is paradoxically eroding the very rights we stand up for – humanity, justice, international law, and a rules-based world order.
The Conservatives have undermined democracy by introducing mandatory voter ID, criminalising protests, eroding the independence of the Electoral Commission, planning to curb the power of the courts, and by prioritising the controversial Rwanda scheme that has been ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court.
In the face of this, we must ask: who truly defends democracy?
Is it the millions who have peacefully attended our protests to advocate for an end to genocide and dignity for the Palestinian people? Or is it unelected Rishi Sunak and his allies, seemingly embarking on a scorched earth policy against our civil liberties?
Historian Timothy Snyder wrote in On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century that we must be wary of the term “extremism” when used by those in power as it often serves to stifle dissent and label anyone outside of the mainstream as a threat.
After what our Prime Minister told the nation outside Downing Street on Friday, it should make us think: who are the extremists and why do they want to silence our collective voices?
Mustafa Al-Dabbagh is a media and politics spokesperson at the Muslim Association of Britain
‘The “Dangerous Muslim” Trope is Being Weaponised to Avoid Scrutiny’
It’s not about the women and children being massacred in Gaza, it’s about Lindsey Hoyle and UK's elected representatives feeling scared. Somehow the House of Commons Speaker turned a motion by the Scottish National Party calling for a ceasefire in Gaza into a debate on who runs the country. According to former Home Secretary, Suella Braveman it is the “Islamists”.
It is a far-right trope that effectively defines Muslims in Britain as a 'Trojan Horse’. Braverman and her acolytes are now puffing out their chests, determined to face down this phantom menace to the democracy which they themselves have so readily undermined.
Lee Anderson turned his fire on London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, who he opined was being controlled by Islamists. Khan’s Muslimness has so offended Conservatives both in Britain and across the pond that, every few years, they accuse him of being in cahoots with undesirables. In their eyes, he is now nothing more than a puppet.
Braverman and Anderson have been joined by William Shawcross, the former extremism tsar who lamented that the Government had ignored the recommendations from his review of the counter-terrorism Prevent Strategy – a strategy considered by critics to be a mechanism to criminalise religious and political beliefs.
Shawcross cited the safety of the public, which he claimed is now at increased risk in the UK due to the war in Gaza. Official police statistics show that the arrest rate for the millions of people who have marched since October is lower than the Glastonbury Festival – a fact not reported in any mainstream media outlet.
Both in its timing and execution, the campaign by those against Palestine employed its 'dangerous Muslims' card in a manner that has left journalists on right-wing radio stations aghast at how possibly “orchestrated” it is.
Academic Ben Whitham has called it a well-crafted “racist tradition”. As he posts, “politicians and journalists have worked hard over many years to perpetuate the idea that British Muslims represent a fifth column and secret cabal plotting to 'Islamicise’ the UK”.
The lives of Palestinians are now a political game, whereby those supporting the idea that they should not be murdered and maimed are cast as the 'baddies’. This isn’t about the safety of MPs. Turning themselves into victims of a phantom threat is really a panic about their moral culpability in supporting the mass slaughter of civilians in Gaza – aided and abetted by the media class.
This nexus was at work again this week in the spike in online articles and broadcast mentions of the word 'Islamist’ . The use of the word and its associated terms suggests that detractors don’t hate Muslims per se, it’s just the really, really bad ones they’re concerned about.
Yet time and again, 'Islamist’ is used when reporting on any issue in which Muslim voices are raised, leading to debates on safety and extremism.
Democracy is great, we are told, because alongside other things, it encourages citizens to voice their concerns on issues they feel strongly about. But if you do this as a Muslim, there’s a high chance you will be labelled an Islamist; an extremist; and, in the case of Palestine, an antisemite.
As a new study on the media’s use of language when reporting on Muslims concludes, Islamism is “represented as being totalitarian and as such is incompatible with democracy and other modernist values”.
The Government has made no secret of its disdain for Muslims for many years.
The Prime Minister and his Deputy can’t bring themselves to use the word “Islamophobia”. Conservative MP Paul Scully joined the chorus when he claimed particular areas of Britain with large ethnic minority populations are no-go zones, citing the heavily Muslim-populated Tower Hamlets in east London and Sparkhill in Birmingham. Again, 'no-go zones’ is a suspiciously coded phrase which most likely means areas people like Scully don’t like visiting as opposed to anyone actually being denied entry. The last time a newspaper printed such lies the press regulator ruled against the Daily Mail and forced it to publish a correction.
The tropes now being launched against Britain’s Muslims are no longer obscure fringe talking points –they are being thrust into the mainstream by Conservative politicians and the right-wing media, irate at seeing mass protests in support of the Palestinian people. The Telegraph, a pillar of Britain’s right-wing media long hostile to any Muslim protest, front-paged the absurd allegation that Islamists were now running the country.
The next time a frustrated Brit has to endure cancelled trains or can’t get a GP appointment, or an entire council goes bankrupt as many are predicted to do, remember: it’s the Muslims who have done that.
More concerning is the fact that the kind of rhetoric that was routinely found on the pages of right-wing publications now has a broadcast presence, on the likes of GB News and TalkTV.
This is not mere 'news’ but polemic against British citizens. At a time where much of the population continues to face the challenges of a fall in living standards and the destruction of institutions, there are few if any solutions being offered to them.
Instead, they are being served an enemy.
Is India Becoming a Hindu Majoritarian Autocracy?
Forty countries - from India, the UK and the US to Russia and South Africa - are headed for national elections in 2024, in a highly sensitive geopolitical environment that has not been seen before. Europe is marching to the right, the US could well go the same way.
India, which will have its general elections by May, is the world’s the largest democracy, will it too swing further to the right towards an electoral autocracy as many critics claim, or will its people reclaim its pluralist democracy?
The ruling right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014, in coalition with parties of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), defeating the grand old Indian National Congress (INC) and its allies of United Progressive Alliance (UPA). In 2019 the BJP-led-NDA won a landslide victory with 353 seats in Lok Sabha (lower house) while reducing the Congress-led-UPA to a mere 91 seats.
Since the BJP came to power, it has held sway over northern states while the southern states have shown a trend towards Congress and Opposition victories during recent state elections, indicating a growing division between the north and the south.
Riding high on its recent victories, the BJP is readying itself for an extravaganza on 22 January – the inauguration of the Lord Rama Temple in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh (UP). Given the timing of the event, so close to the elections, it is thought that the temple opening is likely to be used to further garner the Hindu vote which could lead to a highly polarised and divisive election.
In the 10 years of BJP rule, India has seen a conscious rise in religious hatred, where majoritarianism and the Hindutva ideology is reigning supreme. The BJP’s rise began since the demolition of the 16th-Century Babri Masjid (mosque) in Ayodhya on 6 December 1992. In 1990, a political and religious rally tour was started by the then BJP President LK Advani named the Ram Janabhoomi Rath Yatra (Chariot procession) from Gujarat, where the current Prime Minister Narendra Modi was then chief minister, to Ayodhya, which culminated in an ugly takedown of the mosque by members of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) a far-right Hindu nationalist organisation of which BJP is the political wing, alongside its affiliates like Vishwa Hindu Parishad which is a member of RSS and Bajrang Dal, its aggressive youth wing. More than 2,000 people were killed in the nationwide riots that followed, predominantly Muslims.
The nationalist promise was to build a magnificent Lord Rama temple in Ayodhya on the grounds of the 460-year-old mosque where Muslims had offered prayers for generations. Hindus have long believed it to be the birthplace of Lord Rama. According to the mosque’s inscriptions, it was built by Mughal emperor Babur in 1528-29. However, in 1949 Hindus placed idols of Lord Rama inside the mosque, following which no Muslim prayers were ever offered.
In 2010 the Allahabad High Court upheld the claim that the mosque was built on the spot believed to be Lord Rama’s birthplace and awarded the site of the central dome for the construction of the temple while noting that the excavated structure underneath it was not Islamic in nature. In 2019, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the land be handed over to a trust to oversee the construction of a Hindu temple and ordered a separate piece of land to be given to the Muslims.
Behind the BJP’s religio-cultural rhetoric, there have always been clever political calculations. In 2000, the then BJP leader, the late Sushma Swaraj admitted that the Rama Jnambhoomi movement was ‘purely political in nature and had nothing to do with religion.’ Could this Ayodhya event be the final war cry leading to the RSS-BJP dream project of a Hindu Rashtra (nation), destroying the country’s pluralistic democracy woven intricately over the past 75 years?
In the lead-up to 22 January, right-wing organisations have been mobilising their forces to ask for donations for the temple and use the Rama temple card for vote gains. Leaders of VHP have said the temple will be the symbol of Hindutva like the Vatican and Mecca. Modi has asked citizens to celebrate the event as if it was Diwali. But the event and the involvement of the Prime Minister and his party has been fraught with controversy. Opposition leaders have turned down invitations to the consecration ceremony calling it a political event of RSS and BJP.
Some of the Shankaracharyas (head priests) of the four main Hindu religious centres have also refused to attend, as they believe it is a political event and not a religious or spiritual one. They have pointed out that the temple, which is still not complete, cannot have the consecration of its deity, and that the hurry to do so is a clear indication that the BJP wants to capitalise on it for electoral advantage. Clearly Hinduism (the religion) is calling out Hindutva (the political ideology).
Religious hatred has seen an increase since 2014. Cases of lynching Muslims and lower caste Hindus by right-wing mobs on the slightest suspicion have risen. The concept of ‘love-jihad’ has been used to beat and even kill inter-religious couples. For the past eight months, the BJP-ruled north-eastern state of Manipur has been burning due to religious clashes and killings between the Hindu Metei and Christian Kuki Zo communities. Churches have been burnt down, in May two Kuki Zo women were raped and paraded naked on the roads by Meteis. Despite such carnage its chief minister has not been removed.
“The BJP Government’s discriminatory and divisive policies have led to increased violence against minorities, creating a pervasive environment of fear and a chilling effect on Government critics,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch.
Amidst all this, on 14 January, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi embarked on a socio-political rally tour that promises to stir the soul of the nation, calling it Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra. Significantly, he began this journey, which will cover 6,713 km from east to west, from Manipur. He will end the journey in Mumbai, on 20 March, covering a total of 355 Lok Sabha seats. A year ago, Gandhi walked 4,080 km from Kanyakumari in the south to Kashmir in the north.
Amidst communal tension, regional disparities, and rising unemployment, Gandhi’s call is for unity and justice. Will it have any electoral dividends for Congress? After all, he will go through the densely populated, BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh, which boasts of 80 Lok Sabha seats. He has untiringly stood against what he calls RSS’s divisive politics. To further frustrate Modi’s march towards a third term 28 parties with Congress have formed INDIA- Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance.
The mainstream media – termed as ‘godi media’ (lapdog media) – has almost blacked out the entire opposition, so its public reach must be through alternate methods. The Government’s autocratic stance is visible in the curbing of the media, NGOs, and even comedians. Several Government policies are targeting academics who refuse to promote Hindu nationalism in the classroom and in their research. There is a steady introduction of the right-wing agenda in the education curriculum of schools. After months of suspension, the Home Ministry has cancelled the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) registration of the globally renowned public research institute, Centre for Policy Research. Indeed, according to the V-Dem Institute, one of the leading measures of democracy, India now ranks in the bottom 10-20% on its Academic Freedom Index.
Also, for the first time, the Indian Parliament saw the suspension of 141 MPs during last month’s crucial Winter Session of Parliament – 95 from Lok Sabha and 46 from the upper house, Rajya Sabha, for demanding a debate on a Parliament security breach on 13 December. The opposition called it a “mockery of democracy” as, after their suspension, important draconian bills were passed without any debate, undermining parliamentary democracy.
The current buzz in India is that the Ayodhya extravaganza will indeed further bolster the BJP’s chances of sweeping the forthcoming 543-seat-Lok Sabha elections. The danger is that an absolute majority for a single party in a multiparty democracy could precipitate a swift slide to authoritarianism. Can INDIA stop this from happening? Or will religious majoritarianism trump economy and development?
Geopolitically, India is a critically important player given the tensions between China, Russia and the West. But, as is expected after 22 January, the toxic mix of religion and politics in the run-up to the elections could create an electoral autocracy at a time when the world needs a vibrant, confident, pluralist Indian democracy.
Silencing Teachers in Yemen
As the Houthi replaced the internationally recognized government of Yemen, dismissing it predictably as illegitimate and manipulated by Western forces, they dismantled the nation’s academic institutions, imposing a coercive educational regime with an ideologically-driven curriculum on instructors at every level, from primary schools to universities....