At PMQs this week, Kemi Badenoch told MPs that Labour’s adoption of the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslim’s definition of ‘Islamophobia’ has inhibited public discussion of rape gangs. She pointed out that, according to this definition, anyone who draws attention to the over-representation of Muslims in the grooming gangs is guilty of Islamophobia. This, she argued, is why some members of the Parliamentary Labour Party have been ‘scared to tell the truth’. She’s right, but the problem runs deeper than that.
The definition Mrs Badenoch referred to was drawn up by the APPG in 2018, when the co-chairs were Wes Streeting and Anna Soubry. It issued a report that defined Islamophobia as ‘a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness’ and went on to give examples of how this prejudice manifests itself. The definition was formally adopted by the Labour Party in 2019.
At the time, the report was criticised for defining Islamophobia too broadly.
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