This is the Free Speech Union’s submission to the ‘Call for Evidence’ from the Working Group tasked with defining Islamophobia/anti-Muslim hatred.

We argue that Muslims are already adequately protected by existing laws, such as the Public Order Act 1986, which criminalises stirring up religious hatred, and the Equality Act 2010, which makes it unlawful for an employer or service provider to discriminate on religious grounds. To provide Muslims with additional, non-statutory protections is therefore unnecessary and will inevitably have a chilling effect on free speech, as well as being socially divisive. That’s particularly true if the definition is quite broad and seeks to proscribe criticism of the religion of Islam.

Further, we warn that an expansive definition of Islamophobia/anti-Muslim hatred, if taken up by public bodies and taxpayer-funded institutions like schools and universities, could lead to those organisations breaching various laws and conventions that protect free speech.

We point out that the definition of Islamophobia that the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims came up with in 2018 and which was adopted by the Labour Party and numerous local councils has had a chilling effect. The most notorious example is that several of the people who raised the alarm about the grooming gangs, such as Sarah Champion and Baroness Casey, were smeared as ‘Islamophobes’, deterring others from speaking out. But there are plenty of other examples too which we list in the Annex.