Angela Rayner to set rules on Islam and free speech
by Charles Hymas, Telegraph:
Ex-Tory Dominic Grieve tipped to head up advisory council but critics warn ‘blasphemy’ law could be created.
Angela Rayner is planning to create a council on Islamophobia and is lining up a former Tory minister to lead it, The Telegraph can reveal.
The 16-strong council will help advise on drawing up an official government definition for anti-Muslim discrimination and will provide advice to ministers on tackling Islamophobia, according to sources.
Dominic Grieve, the former Conservative attorney general and a prominent Remainer, has been “recommended” to chair the council within Ms Rayner’s Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) as a politician who has been actively involved in tackling Islamophobia.
He chaired the Citizens’ UK Commission on Islam, which aimed to promote dialogue between Muslim and non-Muslim communities, and wrote a foreword to a controversial all-party parliamentary group’s report in 2018 that set out a definition of Islamophobia, which the Labour Party adopted.The definition has been criticised for being so widely drawn that it curbs free speech, amounts to a de facto blasphemy law and stifles legitimate criticism of Islam as a religion.
[…] Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, said: “The Government should drop its plans for such a deeply flawed definition of Islamophobia. Of course we should tackle anti-Muslim hate wherever it occurs, but this definition is a Trojan horse for a blasphemy law protecting Islam.
>“Why do Labour MPs think it is acceptable to mock Christianity but not Islam? Time and again this Labour Government displays an Orwellian disregard for freedom of speech.”