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

Last week, as far-right thugs targeted Muslims primarily, the former Conservative immigration minister Robert Jenrick told Sky News that saying “Allahu Akbar” —“God is greater”— in public should be an arrestable offence. This is a solemn phrase millions of British Muslims use daily.

Jenrick’s Islamophobia received no pushback from the interviewer, no response from his party leader, and led to no apology: a stark reflection of how Islamophobia has become acceptable, not just on the far right, but also in mainstream media and politics.

What makes it even worse is the context of his comments.

In Southport, a mob hurled bricks at a mosque, causing one worshipper, trapped along with the imam, to think he might die. Others attempted to set fire to a hotel in Rotherham used to house asylum seekers. Far-right thugs stopped cars in Middlesbrough to check if their drivers were white before letting them pass. A “large group of men” beat up a black man in Manchester, and a Muslim man was stabbed at a train station in Liverpool. In Hull, violent far-right rioters dragged an Asian man out of his car, while racially abusing him by repeatedly yelling “P**i”. Others shouted “fuck Muslims” in a “demonstration”, children were found screaming “who the fuck is Allah?” and other children joined their parents shouting “P***s out”. And some attacked an Islamic book stall in Liverpool, whilst others vandalized Muslim graves in Burnley.

There was a similar story online. According to researcher Marc Owen Jones, on X,65 per cent of impressions earned by posts about Muslims between 28th July and 9th August (155m impressions) were anti-Muslim or anti-migrant.

The appalling scale of the far-right thuggery led to a palpable and justifiable fear among Muslims and minority communities across the country. Even Humza Yousaf, former first minister of Scotland, shared that the riots made him question whether he and his family would remain in the UK. And the mayor of London Sadiq Khan shared that he did not feel safe as a Muslim politician in the wake of the riots.

In this environment, Jenrick felt confident in pushing out his hate and divisiveness. He was not alone. Elon Musk shared—and then deleted—a false post from the co-leader of the far-right Britain First party about the UK building “detainment camps” for rioters, and proclaimed that civil war in the UK was “inevitable”; Matthew Goodwin seemed to suggest that a “son of immigrants” is not really British; and Nigel Farage called “some of the actions” of far-right rioters “truly disgusting”—but also appeared to excuse rioters, saying it was “a reaction to fear, to discomfort, to unease that is out there shared by tens of millions of people.”

Certain news outlets followed suit. The Daily Telegraph headlined its front page “Far-right clash with Muslims in rioting”, and ran a host of frankly embarrassing and repulsive articles; and GB News consistently seems to be trying to make excuses for the far right.

You might argue that they are targeting the 34 per cent of Conservative party voters and 63 per cent of Reform voters who blamed Muslims for the riots.

Perhaps. But I think it goes deeper.

Too many people in positions of power have, for too long, denied Islamophobia, or outright encouraged it.

Let us not forget the rampant Islamophobia in the Conservative party: from Boris Johnson comparing Muslim women to “letterboxes”, which led to a 375 per cent rise in hate crime against Muslim women, to former culture secretary Nadine Dorries and current MP Bob Blackman retweeting Tommy Robinson.

Let us not forget the negative coverage of Muslims in the UK media, in which stereotypical tropes about them are regularly propagated. The editor of the Daily Express even admitted that the paper helped create “Islamophobic sentiment”. Research by the UNHCR found the Daily Mail and the Sun showed a hostility towards migrants that was “unique” among the newspapers they sampled.

There is a reason why approximately a third of the UK population endorse casual prejudices such as “Islam is a religion of violence” or “Muslims will never be as British as other British people”.

While we have seen fantastic examples of community, solidarity and allyship against racism, even belatedly from some of its worst perpetrators, we cannot get away from the fact that far-right Islamophobia has gained a public foothold.

And removing this foothold is not straightforward. It requires a reflection on the power dynamics and drivers of Islamophobia (and other forms of bigotry) in our society. There are some community-based and education-centric solutions, but there also needs to be a concerted effort to tackle it both from the very top, where influence sits.

In practice, this means (finally) appointing an Islamophobia adviser with support from Muslim communities to focus on the issue; adopting the APPG definition of Islamophobia—that it is “rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness”—as part of a broader effort to embed an understanding of this kind of racism in society; and implementing measures  requiring social media giants to refer breaches of the law to local police, as well as to monitor and penalize clear cases of incitement to racial or religious hatred.

It’s time to turn words into action, and to ensure that Islamophobia is challenged. The question is, do we have the will to do it?

Source: Prospect Magazine

The 28-year-old martial arts expert said she wanted to help women of color to learn how to deal with abuse and build connections and confidence after more than a week of unrest aimed at mosques, asylum seeker hotels and the police.

“It gives you a little bit more confidence,” she said. “You kind of know what to look for, how to be socially aware, how to spot things and how to get out of a really bad situation.”

Muslim and ethnic minority communities have expressed shock over the disorder which was sparked by false information online that the suspected killer of three young girls in a knife attack in Southport, northwest England, was an Islamist migrant.

Martial arts instructor Stewart McGill said he had seen more women signing up for classes since the unrest started. He told them how to defend themselves with tactics including kicks and impromptu weapons such as belts.

One attendee, Elza Annan, 24, said she felt more confident.

“I obviously don’t want to have to use these techniques but it is useful and beneficial to have them … especially because of recent events of far-right racists coming out and targeting people of color,” she said.

The riots have largely targeted migrants, Muslims, and Asian people, spreading fear through ethnic minority communities and casting a light on Britain’s record of integration.

Tell MAMA UK, a group that monitors anti-Muslim incidents, said hate directed at Muslims had been growing in Britain for some time, and especially since Oct. 7 last year, the start of the conflict in Gaza.

Since the riots began, it had received more than 500 calls and online reports of anti-Muslim behavior across Britain.

Sunder Katwala, director of the think-tank British Future, which focuses on migration and identity, said at its best, Britain is a “confident multi-ethnic democracy”.

But he said successive governments had lacked a strategy for integrating different communities. While those arriving recently from Ukraine and Hong Kong were given government support, that did not happen to all.

The asylum system faced particular pressures, with a huge backlog of applications and some Britons concerned about pressure on housing, healthcare and education.

“With asylum you’ve got a visible lack of control, and that can feed into fear,” he said.

The riots have largely stopped since thousands of anti-racism protesters turned out to protect potential targets such as immigration advice centers, mosques, and hotels housing asylum seekers.

Hassan, who wears a hijab and is a Swiss national of Somali origin, moved to Britain in 2008, partly because she felt it was more welcoming to ethnic minorities than many parts of Europe. She is considering organizing more classes.

A similar event was planned for Manchester, northern England, and a campaign group, The Three Hijabis, held a large online conference call with Muslim women this week to discuss the psychological impact of Islamophobic violence.

Shaista Aziz, the group’s director, said some women feared that the violence could unleash confrontations or abuse, prompting many to stay close to home.

“Today I advised a sister I dearly love to consider removing her hijab to stay safe as she travels through the Northeast …” she said on X during the riots. “Across the country British Muslims are having these same conversations.”

Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has ordered extra protection for the Muslim community, described rioters as “far-right thugs” and almost 800 people have been arrested, with some fast-tracked through the courts and jailed.

The anti-racism protests are likely to continue.

For Maki Omori, 23, who identifies as non-binary, Saturday’s class would help prepare for counter protests.

“I found it really intimidating, thinking about how I would defend myself,” Omori said. “I want to make sure that if something happens, I feel ready.”

Source: Reuters