Labour’s Backdoor British Blasphemy Laws

The Runnymede Trust, a “progressive” activist think tank in Britain, adopted the term “Islamophobia” in 1997 to describe not just prejudice against Muslims but also towards Islam. The term was inherited from Revolutionary Iran in the 1980s and it mainstreamed the concerted effort to regulate speech against Islam in British public life. In more recent years, the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims has introduced its own vague and therefore pernicious definition of the term. According to this definition, “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.” This is the definition which the Labour Party has officially adopted for internal party purposes.

The trouble with this definition is that its scope is so broad that it covers almost everything that might be said about Islam and about the practices of some of its most extreme adherents. It could be illegal to claim that the history of Islam has involved spreading the religion via the sword – which is, of course, true. It might also be illegal to associate certain crimes or harms perpetrated against women within some minority communities as having anything to do with Islam.

Now, a Labour government wouldn’t have to criminalize “Islamophobic” speech to effectively introduce a blasphemy law through the back door. Simply the adoption and proliferation of the concept in policing, the work force, and guidance for public bodies would be enough to radically change the way Britons feel comfortable speaking about Islam.

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