I was born in Iran and raised in the UK and have seen with my own eyes the cruelty of theocracy and the strength of liberty. The Islamic Republic drove my family into exile for daring to challenge its stranglehold on faith. In Britain, we found a nation rooted in open debate, tolerance, and the right to question even the holiest of ideas. But today, that very freedom is being smothered, not by fanatics on the streets, but by officials in government offices.
The British State, under the guise of fighting “Islamophobia,” is now policing speech and protecting religion from criticism. Through hate crime legislation, the silencing of dissenting voices and most, absurdly, a government-endorsed committee tasked with defining what you can and cannot say about Islam, the establishment is turning reasonable people into suspects.
But let me say clearly: anti-Muslim sentiment in Britain is not a mystery. It is not the work of shadowy hate groups. It is a predictable response to two things: the violent actions of Islamist extremists, and the cowardly overreach of the institutions that claim to protect us.
The true cause of Rising anti-Muslim feeling? When a man blows up children at a concert in Manchester, when women are systematically abused in grooming gangs across northern England, when extremists preach Sharia supremacy in British mosques ordinary people take notice. And when they see the authorities respond not with robust action but with silence and censorship, trust breaks down.
Let’s be honest: the spike in suspicion toward Muslims is not irrational. It is the product of repeated betrayal. A small number of Islamist extremists have caused immense harm. And instead of confronting that ideology, our government has chosen to criminalise criticism of it.
It is so obvious that hate crime laws don’t solve the problem but instead they worsen it. I’d have thought even the densest of our parliamentarians could see it. Britain has no shortage of laws to prosecute hate. The Public Order Act, the Racial and Religious Hatred Act, the Equality Act. These are robust tools that used properly can protect individuals from threats and abuse.
But what we’re seeing now is the slow but certain criminalisation of dissent. “Non-crime hate incidents” are logged against people who have committed no offence, only expressed an ‘unorthodox’ opinion. That is, unorthodox to the State and MSM. Want to question Islamic dress codes? Wonder aloud about halal slaughter? Raise concerns about radical preaching? Congratulations, you might end up on a police record.
This isn’t justice. It’s intimidation. It is even discriminatory as no other group is given such special privileges. And far from helping Muslims, it makes others resent them even more.
In 2024, in an insult to democracy, the government appointed Dominic Grieve KC, a former Attorney General, to chair a working group tasked with producing an official definition of “Islamophobia.” What sounds like a bureaucratic exercise is actually a profound attack on free speech and an insult to public intelligence. Let’s consider the makeup of this committee. Here are its members:
Dominic Grieve KC – Chair. Former Conservative MP and Attorney General, now styled as an independent. Not a Muslim, but widely viewed as, er, politically compliant.
Professor Javed Khan OBE – Director of EQUI (an independent think tank working to improve outcomes for British Muslims), former CEO of Barnardo’s. Long involved in community advocacy with a strong Muslim identity.
Baroness Shaista Gohir OBE – Life peer and CEO of the Muslim Women’s Network UK.
Akeela Ahmed MBE – Co-Chair of the British Muslim Civil Society Network. Previously part of the government’s Anti-Muslim Hatred Working Group.
Asha Affi – Consultant and vocal Muslim community advocate.
Ali Milani – Former Labour parliamentary candidate and NUS vice president, known for activist politics.
In short: every committee member except the chair is Muslim, and most have longstanding connections with Muslim advocacy organisations. This is not a cross-section of British society, it is a lobby group with government endorsement. Appointing these activist Muslims is like asking a fox to design and then guard the henhouse. How can such a group possibly offer an impartial definition? The outcome is already written. They will recommend what they were appointed to recommend: a definition that makes Islam criticism legally perilous.
The likely model is the 2018 All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) definition of Islamophobia which, in a disastrous definition, claimed:
“Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.”
This is nonsense.
Islam is not a race. It is a set of ideas—varied, complex, and historically debated. To conflate religious identity with race is to shut down all argument. If I, a Muslim woman, question Sharia law, am I now “Islamophobic”? Is a secular reformer in Cairo a racist for challenging hijab mandates?
This definition doesn’t protect people it protects an ideology. It is a blasphemy law in all but name. And once accepted, it will strangle public discourse far beyond fringe media or academia. Here’s the grim irony: the very institutions who say that they are trying to “protect Muslims” are the ones creating most of the anti-Muslim feeling. The more the State cracks down on speech, the more suspicion it breeds.
When police ignore grooming gang reports for fear of “offending communities,” when civil servants dodge debates about forced marriage, when teachers are afraid to speak honestly about extremism in classrooms, who suffers? Not the extremists. Not the clerics. But the public, the moderates, and the victims.
In that vacuum, everyday Brits begin to distrust not just extremists, but all Muslims. Not because they are racist but because they sense they are being lied to and forced to lose a little bit of their identity. And they are right.
This is the most dangerous outcome of all. Decent, tolerant, intelligent people are beginning to harden. They’re not shouting slurs. They’re not joining hate groups. But they are becoming cautious, resentful, even quietly hostile. Not because of anything most Muslims have done but because they see the government protecting an often violent and intolerant religious ideology from scrutiny, even while it punishes them for questioning it.
This is how “Islamophobia” becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The term itself is now toxic, an elastic insult used to shut people up, smear critics, and shield bad ideas. Let me say this clearly: Islam is not fragile. Muslims are not children. We do not need blasphemy laws to survive. We need equal treatment, equal accountability, and the right to be debated, like everyone else.
We need to insist that they abolish the Islamophobia working group. It is ideologically stacked and institutionally dishonest. We must reject any official definition of Islamophobia. None is needed beyond existing laws. And most importantly we must end the use of “non-crime hate incidents.” They are Orwellian, punitive, and legally dubious. Strengthen enforcement of existing hate crime laws, without fear or favour and defend the Waddington Amendment (which protects free speech on religion) from any attempt to repeal it. Educate, don’t criminalise. Encourage dialogue across communities—not censorship. The only cure for division is truth. And truth cannot survive under gag orders.
I write this not as a reactionary or a provocateur, but as a woman of faith. I love many aspects of Islam: its compassion, its discipline, its call to charity. But I also reject its abuse: the silencing of women, the persecution of minorities, the sanctification of violence in some interpretations.
That makes me “Islamophobic” in the eyes of some. So be it. I’d rather be called names than live under the British version of Iran’s speech code. I fled theocracy once. I will not bow to it again under the polite veil of “sensitivity.” Let Muslims be strong. Let critics be heard. Let Britain be Britain.
Islamist extremists harmed Britain, but it is not they who are driving the country into division, it is the cowardice of our institutions, the censorship of our media, and the complicity of our leaders.
Free speech is not a luxury—it is the only path to unity. We do not protect Muslims by banning criticism of Islam. We protect Muslims by making them equal under the law, not by insulating their beliefs from question.
Britain must remember what made it free: robust debate, equal laws, and fearless truth-telling. The “Islamophobia” project betrays all three.