The head of the Muslim Council of Britain has called for an explanation and a review of the government’s policy of non-engagement with the body after her appeals for contact during the summer riots were ignored.

Zara Mohammed, who was elected more than three years ago as the MCB’s youngest and first female secretary general, said there had been a “quite shocking” lack of contact with the new government at a time when mobs were targeting Muslims and mosques.

The MCB had been “heavily engaged” with Labour’s shadow cabinet when the party was in opposition, including a meeting in 2021 between Mohammed and Keir Starmer where they discussed “the importance of engaging with Muslim communities”, she said.

Downing Street then ignored attempts to discuss the dangers being posed to Muslim people during the riots, Mohammed said, even as Northern Ireland’s first minister, Michelle O’Neill, and senior police officers held talks with her in Belfast.

Mohammed, 33, whose tenure as MCB leader will end in January, said she hoped ministers would now review the government’s “baffling” approach to the UK’s largest Muslim umbrella group, which has more than 500 affiliated members including mosques, schools and charitable associations.

She said: “There’s been no official communication from government since the election, and when the riots happened, I guess that’s where we would have expected.

“We appreciated that, with any new government, they’ve got to settle in, and there’s got to be some time to work out [things]. There’s a lot of things going on in the country, economic downturns, we appreciate that.

“But I think what was really disappointing, and perhaps for many in the Muslim community, quite shocking, was no formal or meaningful engagement with the Muslim Council of Britain during a time when mosques and Muslims were being targeted by the far right in a terrifying way.”

The Conservative government had a policy of non-engagement with the MCB and in a statement to parliament on 1 August the Labour communities minister Alex Norris disclosed that there had “been no change to HMG [his majesty’s government] policy and there are no plans for ministers to meet with the Muslim Council of Britain”.

The new government has not expanded on its approach but the reason given to parliament by Rishi Sunak’s administration for its policy of non-engagement was that “previous MCB leaders have taken positions that contradict our fundamental values and these have not been explicitly retracted”.

That statement was a reference to a row dating back to 2009 when the then MCB deputy secretary general, Daud Abdullah, signed a document known as the Istanbul declaration, which advocated attacks on the Royal Navy if it tried to stop arms for Hamas being smuggled into Gaza.

The then Labour government said it would have nothing more to do with the MCB unless Abdullah stepped down. He did resign and the MCB said the views expressed did not represent those of the body, leading to a re-engagement in the last year of Gordon Brown’s government.

Liberal Democrat ministers in the coalition government elected in 2010 also engaged with the MCB. Penny Mordaunt, when she was the Conservative paymaster general, had a meeting with Mohammed in 2021 but was heavily criticised in parts of the media, including the Daily Mail.

Mohammed said the MCB had since been “locked out”, although she added that policy had not been consistent, with the body providing a reference service for the appointment of Muslim chaplains by the Ministry of Defence until it was highlighted in a Daily Telegraph article last year.

Last week the deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, told the Commons that the government was “actively considering” its approach to tackling Islamophobia.

Mohammed said she was “optimistic” that the government would “get its act together”.

She said: “I think what I’m hopeful of is that the government will review the former position and will look at offering a position of clarity as to why [they are not engaging], and having a conversation with us to see, you know, what are the challenges; what are the blocks in 2024, not in 2009.

“Ultimately, talking to a national body is critical when it comes to national representative issues. That’s why we exist, because those mosques sign up to be an umbrella where we’ve had big political issues to talk about.

“We never claim to be the only voice for British Muslims. We claim to represent our bodies. But just as other faith communities have representative bodies, of course, we have one, and of course we want to vocalize on the policy issues, on national representation.”

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “The government engages regularly with faith communities. During the recent disorder, the minister for faith spoke to representatives of Muslim communities through numerous roundtables and visits to places of worship.”

Source: The Guardian

A peer has been accused of Islamophobia after giving a “disgusting and outrageous” speech in the House of Lords.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch claimed “radicals” plan to “take us over through the power of the womb and the ballot box” after discussing government plans to improve counterterrorism measures at public venues following the King’s Speech.

“The sharia allows Muslim men to have four wives at a time, most of whom are having at least two children, so the Muslim population is going up 10 times faster than our national average,” he told the House of Lords last Thursday, July 25.

“On past trends, Birmingham and nine other English local authorities will be majority Muslim by 2031. The radicals’ plan is to wait until they can take us over through the power of the womb and the ballot box.”

The 82-year-old, now a non-affiliated peer having formerly sat as a Conservative and briefly been the leader of Ukip, has been condemned for his comments.

Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Meral Hussein-Ece wrote on X: “Lord Pearson of Rannoch gave a disgusting anti-Muslim racist speech in the House of Lords today. He would’ve been loudly condemned if he spoke about other faiths in this way.”

The Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) and the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) say they are lodging formal complaints with the House of Lords commissioners for standards over Lord Pearson’s remarks.

Zara Mohammed, MCB secretary general, told The Independent: “Lord Pearson’s recent comments are outrageous and perpetuate classic Islamophobic tropes that demonize British Muslim communities. He appears indifferent to the impact of his words, despite the rise in Islamophobia-related hate crimes.

“As a member of the House of Lords, Lord Pearson should be held accountable for his conduct. We will be writing to the House of Lords commissioners for standards and hope they investigate and take appropriate action.”

Raghad Altikriti, chair of MAB, told The Independent: “It is crucial for public figures to promote unity and respect, rather than resort to racist dog whistles and Islamophobic tropes.

“His comments and behavior fall far short of the expected standards of a member of the House of Lords, and we hope that the House of Lords Commissioners for Standards will look into this matter and take decisive action.”

Lord Pearson defended his speech, telling The Independent his points about the Muslim population are “simply factual, being a projection of Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures”.

“Islamists (…) are quite open about using the ‘power of the womb and the ballot box’ to help them take over Western civilization; like communists before the wall came down, they are a world domination movement,” he added.

ONS figures show that 6.5 per cent (3.9m) of the population of England and Wales identified as Muslim in 2021, up by 1.6 per cent a decade earlier.

In March, London charity Islamophobia Response Unit (IRU) reported seeing a 365 per cent rise in Islamophobia-related hate crimes across England and Wales since the outbreak of the Gaza conflict in October.

Lord Pearson previously met with condemnation when he claimed that UK Muslim communities were home to “thousands of potential home-grown terrorists”. He claimed calls for violence were not just coming from a “few extremists”, saying: “These people hate us with frightening religious fervor and we are right to fear them.”

The peer previously organized a House of Lords screening of an anti-Muslim film and invited far-right campaigner Tommy Robinson to parliament.

Lord Pearson joined the Lords in 1990 as a Conservative peer before joining Ukip in 2007 and resigning to sit as a non-affiliated peer in 2019. He became leader of Ukip in 2009 but resigned a year later, saying he was not good enough at party politics to do the job.

A House of Lords spokesperson said: “The House of Lords commissioners for standards are responsible for the independent and impartial investigation of alleged breaches of the House of Lords Code of Conduct.

“The commissioners for standards would need to receive a complaint before undertaking a preliminary assessment to establish whether the complaint falls within their remit to investigate.

“However, it is worth noting paragraph 30(a) of the Code of Conduct, which states that in assessing, investigating and adjudicating allegations of non-compliance, the commissioners must ‘recognize as a primary consideration the constitutional principle of freedom of speech in parliamentary proceedings, including but not limited to the need for members to be able to express their views full and frankly in parliamentary proceedings’.”

Source: The Independent