Angela Rayner's office begins investigation into Islamophobia definition cover-up
22 September 2026
The Islamophobia definition — repackaged as "anti-Muslim hostility" — and the process by which it came to be continue to grow murkier by the day.
At the start of the year, the Free Speech Union exposed that all five members of the Working Group tasked by Angela Rayner to draft the Islamophobia definition had troubling links to Islamist organisations, including the Muslim Council of Britain and MEND. Since 2009, successive governments have adopted a policy of non-engagement with these organisations due to their extremist views.
A Freedom of Information (FOI) request from Nick Timothy, the Conservative MP and Shadow Justice Secretary, revealed something even more disturbing. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) admitted to deleting all responses to the Working Group's consultation, with the evidence gathered being key to the drafting of the final definition, which was published in March.
This is a truly shocking admission. Not only does it go against the Government's own data policy to keep data for at least two years, and twenty years should it be of historical importance — one does assume that reviving Britain's blasphemy laws eighteen years after Parliament voted to abolish them, and for Islam alone, is a matter of "historical importance" — it also leads us to question whether Islamist extremists had the opportunity to influence the definition.
Nick Timothy has written to Angela Rayner, the current Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, demanding urgent answers, and has also written to the interim Permanent Secretary at the department, Will Garton.
Over recent weeks, the Free Speech Union, along with Nick Timothy, has continued to argue that it is almost certain that the Government allowed Islamist extremists to contribute to the drafting of the definition and that officials were now trying to cover it up. Why else would the department delete all of the submissions?
Will Garton, the chief civil servant at MHCLG, has now finally written to the Shadow Justice Secretary confirming that "further work" would take place to investigate the concerns so that it can offer a comprehensive response addressing the issues raised. Mr Garton also went on to say that ministers had not been involved in the decision to delete all the submissions to this consultation, but also rolled out the same empty words that the "anti-Muslim hostility" definition would not have a chilling effect on free speech. It is indeed a little late for that. And if Ministers did not instruct officials to delete the responses, that leads to further questions about who on earth is in charge.
"Labour's cover-up has been exposed. The fact that Angela Rayner's top official has ordered an investigation cannot be seen as anything other than an admission that the mass deletion of evidence was wrong. "It is now clear that Labour didn't want the public to know who influenced their Islamophobia definition, and they have refused to deny that extremist groups were involved. "Labour should finally come clean about who submitted evidence to the working group, and this investigation must give us the answers we need."
Using freedom of information laws, Mr Timothy revealed that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government had deleted all submissions to its working group, which drew up a draft of the definition.
In his letter to the Shadow Justice Secretary, Mr Garton wrote:
"Following your correspondence, and a number of further inquiries received by the department relating to the call for evidence, I have asked officials to undertake further work regarding the handling of information associated with that exercise to ensure that the department's response addresses all relevant issues raised. "This work does not involve reconsidering the Government's decision to adopt the definition. I can, in the meantime, continue to be clear that ministers were not involved in operational decisions relating to the handling or retention of the dataset. "As ministers have set out previously, the definition is non-statutory and does not alter existing protections for freedom of expression. It was adopted in response to the significant rise in anti-Muslim hostility the Government is committed to addressing."
It is clear that there is a cover-up at the heart of government on its Islamophobia definition, and Angela Rayner must answer these questions. The public deserves to know the truth.
Read more in The Telegraph.
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