Angela Rayner to set rules on Islam and free speech

Feb 4, 2025 by

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.”

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