• Afzal Khan has called for his party to adopt an agreed cross-party definition of Islamophobia to help call out the threats of violence against Muslims.
• The Labour MP urged the Government to meet with UK Muslim organisations including the Muslim Council of Britain to discuss the safety of UK Muslims.
Manchester Rusholme MP Afzal Khan has written to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to call out the riots and increased racism towards Muslims.
The Labour MP formerly held the position of Shadow Minister for Exports when the Government was under Tory control. In November 2023, Khan resigned from his frontbench role so that he could vote for the SNP motion demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, indicating his commitment to the Palestinians, and recognising the pain felt by Muslims across the UK.
In his letter, the Pakistani did not hold back on the concerns he had for the safety of Muslims up and down the country.
He opened by targeting the Tories and how they not only failed to curb the rise in Islamophobia but also how they encouraged it.
“I am writing to express my deep concern at the horrific social unrest we have seen over the last week across the UK. This violence has been stoked by the far-right and fuelled by widespread Islamophobia which have become mainstream over the past fourteen years...With an alarming increase in attacks on mosques and Muslims, far-right rioters shouting Islamophobic hate and white supremacist groups mobilising on Britain’s streets so quickly, there is no doubt that British Muslims are feeling extremely anxious and unsafe. British Muslims are an integral part of our society and should be treated as such. It is imperative that this Labour Government, in stark contrast to previous Conservative governments, will not ignore Islamophobia when it occurs.”
Khan’s letter came after almost a week of violent disorder in towns and cities in parts of the UK, after the stabbings in Southport, Merseyside and Belfast, which both Starmer and even Conservative MP Priti Patel have described as “thuggery”, but it seems not as Islamophobia.
He went on to confirm the UK’s measures put in place to protect Muslims and Masjids across the country from the riots that have been taking place, such as a new rapid response process for the police, local authorities, and Masjids to get security deployed quickly, as well as the already in place Protective Security for Mosques Scheme with nearly £30m in funding, which is also available to Muslim schools for their security needs.
Khan then discusses two poignant issues, which he felt would help Muslims to feel more secure.
The first was by urging Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Yvette Cooper to host meetings with Muslim organisations and community leaders.
“As such, I would encourage you, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Home Secretary to convene an urgent meeting with national Muslim organisations, including the Muslim Council of Britain as the UK’s largest representative body of Muslim organisations, to show your unequivocal support for Muslim communities.”
“It is also vital that the Government convenes urgent roundtables with regional Muslim leaders, particularly in areas where the violence has been concentrated, to discuss the specific security concerns of those communities and what action is being taken to de-escalate tensions, return social order and keep Muslim and minority communities, including asylum seekers, safe.”
Khan’s proposal for Starmer, Rayner and Cooper to meet with the Muslim Council of Britain could again bring legitimacy to the organisation that along with CAGE was unjustly labelled as extremists, in an Islamophobic move by Sunak’s Tory government to undermine and delegitimise the authority and collective power of the Muslim Ummah.
If Labour wanted to, they could begin to undo what the Tories had doneto those organisations and their people while raising the confidence of other organisations and community leaders.
It would show that the Muslim Ummah in the UK do matter, and what we as Muslims had been doing for at least the last 10 months for Palestine was always correct.
But with that said, Labour can use the same reasoning to justify why things must be left the way they are. They neither need nor maybe would they want to, as they have achieved what they needed from the General Election.
The other issue is Labour’s current lack of wanting to label any of the riots instigated by Tommy Robinson as Islamophobic.
For this reason, the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims, was set up to tackle Islamophobia. It was formed and funded by The Aziz Foundation in 2017.
Following an inquiry launched in 2017 into Islamophobia, the APPG concluded:
“Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.”
This definition is what Khan refers to when he goes on in his letter to highlight the importance of Starmer’s government needing to formally adopt the widely supported definition of Islamophobia.
“The Labour Party has always been committed to anti-racism and tackling Islamophobia, and was one of the first political parties to adopt the widely supported definition of Islamophobia, produced by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims, internally in the party, in trade unions and by Labour-run councils.”
“Adopting this definition in government, which successive Conservative Prime Ministers neglected to do, will send a strong message that the racism and vitriol we are seeing by a minority of far-right activists on Britain’s streets is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
The Conservative government declined to adopt the proposed definition of Islamophobia saying the wording could harm freedom of speech, meaning people should be allowed to criticise Muslims but not Zionists.
In February, a spokesperson for then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak saidthat the proposed wording ‘conflates race with religion, does not address sectarianism within Islam, and may unintentionally undermine freedom of speech.’ Many people have already seen this happen with anti-Semitism.
Talking about the riots over the past week, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said:
“There is simply no place in our society for the violence, racism and Islamophobia we have witnessed – disorder fuelled by a toxic combination of far-right agitators and online disinformation.”
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said:
“Thugs who have rioted and carried out racist attacks must face the full force of the law.”
Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion Sian Berry said:
“What we are witnessing on our streets is fascist violence fuelled by racism and Islamophobia.”
Phil Rosenberg, President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said in a statement:
“Attacks on Muslims, black people, members of other minorities and our brave police officers are totally unacceptable, and we stand in solidarity with everyone affected.”
