Banning ‘Islamophobia’ would be a gift to grooming gangs

As everyone surely now knows, political correctness is at the heart of Britain’s grooming-gangs scandal. Industrial-scale abuse was carried out in plain sight, and with impunity, because the police, social services and local authorities feared that intervening against mainly Pakistani Muslim men would make them appear ‘racist’.

This is a lesson the Labour government clearly refuses to learn. Its mooted plan to ban ‘Islamophobia’ throughout the UK public sector all but guarantees that open discussion about grooming gangs will be chilled and suppressed in future.

As things stand, Keir Starmer plans to press ahead with plans to officially adopt a controversial definition of Islamophobia for all public bodies. This definition, formulated by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims, effectively treats criticism of any aspect of Islam, or indeed behaviour by some Muslims and even Islamists, as a form of racial discrimination.

The APPG’s report explicitly mentions grooming gangs several times, warning that it is a ‘racist’ trope designed to smear Muslims. In one jaw-dropping paragraph, quoting an outside submission to the review, it says:

‘The recourse to the notion of free speech and a supposed right to criticise Islam results in nothing more than another subtle form of anti-Muslim racism, whereby the criticism humiliates, marginalises and stigmatises Muslims. One real-life example of this concerns the issue of “grooming gangs”.’

In the report’s conclusions, it associates talk of Muslim ‘sex groomers’ with racism.

Now, of course, it would be racist to tar innocent Muslims with the sick crimes of a minority of paedophiles. But it is not hard to see the harm that formally adopting this definition will do to victims of this abuse. Even without an official definition of Islamophobia on the books, the authorities were already reluctant to pursue criminals from Pakistani Muslim backgrounds, fearing accusations of racism. Under Labour’s plans, they will come under additional legal pressure to turn a blind eye to these despicable crimes.

The result will be that victims of rape and torture will be failed all over again. Young girls – and free speech – will once again be sacrificed at the altar of multiculturalism. Starmer cannot say he wasn’t warned.

Fraser Myers is deputy editor at spiked and host of the spiked podcast. Follow him on Twitter: @FraserMyers.