Katie Lam@Katie_Lam_MP
The Government's plans for an Islamophobia definition are back.
They've come up with a different name, but they're still planning to stifle public discussion on grooming gangs, female genital mutilation, and terrorism.
But the Islamophobia definition is the tip of the iceberg.
It comes as part of what the Government calls its 'social cohesion white paper' - 'Protecting What Matters: Towards a more confident, cohesive and resilient United Kingdom'.
It acknowledges that "for many living in the UK, the changes brought about by...migration have been too much, too quickly, and have put huge pressure on services and housing."
It also acknowledges the existence of "communities in the UK living segregated or parallel lives", and the risk posed by extremism.
But they still won't acknowledge the real problem. Instead, they blame the Internet, or gesture in the direction of 'economic factors', or focus exclusively on the problems of the extreme right.
They won't face the fact that, over many decades, the level of immigration has been far too high, particularly from countries and cultures that have very different moral and behavioural norms to our own.
Put simply, the level of immigration to Britain has been too high, and we haven't been selective enough about who is able to come here. When people violate our norms, we've not done enough to remove them from the country.
We've also been too tolerant of cultures which outright reject the norms which have made our country so successful. Institutions have been too nervous about acknowledging this fact, for fear of being perceived as racist.
Almost everybody knows this to be true. The evidence is overwhelming - just look at the grooming gangs.
Children, mostly white working class girls, were abused for decades by gangs of men, most of whom were Muslims, from Pakistan or of Pakistani heritage. In many cases, these crimes were explicitly racially motivated.
And yet institutions, like the police, local councils, and care homes, covered up these crimes for decades, for fear of being viewed as racist.
There are very real lessons to be learned from the grooming gangs.
We must have less migration, and it must be more selective - in particular, we must curb the pernicious use of the family visa system, which so often results in chain migration from cultures very different from our own.
We must be willing to enforce our country's norms. Those who come from abroad, and who aren't willing to abide by those norms, are welcome to go elsewhere.
We must be willing to acknowledge the truth, regardless of how difficult, and react accordingly.
Unfortunately, the Government's white paper reflects none of these lessons. What do they recommend instead?
There are lots of policy proposals in this paper, and I'd recommend that you read it yourself.
There's plenty in here about spending money on 'community regeneration' - as if the problems associated with mass migration can be solved with a few extra hanging baskets.
There's also plenty of totally irrelevant stuff - like the pledge to "[work] with the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and the OSCE", to "press for laws and policies that protect religious or belief minorities" elsewhere in the world. Who are they kidding?
But a few of the policy proposals are especially worrying. In particular, these are the sections which should concern us:
(1) "Support communities who are underrepresented in the workplace" - including by "embedding consideration of ethnic minority participation in local jobcentre planning and delivery". This means more DEI requirements for businesses. Rather than allowing businesses, or public sector organisations, to hire the best person for the job, the Government is planning to use the labour market for social engineering. This runs completely contrary to what has made this country so successful for so long - the simple principle of meritocracy.
(2) "Establish an Advisory Board to support local authorities should tensions rise". Rather than dealing with the root of the problem, the Government seems committed to continuing the 'managing community tensions' approach, which fostered the grooming gang cover-up. If the British public have concerns about immigration, or sectarianism, the answer isn't to "manage" those tensions - it's to solve the underlying problems.
(3) "Work with Belong and the Local Government Association to embed shared guidance on social cohesion". Yet again, more 'management of community tension', this time through a statutory duty on local authorities. This will mean more decisions taken in the name of "managing community cohesion", rather than in the pursuit of truth, or fairness, or justice.
(4) "Include diverse perspectives in public service reform", through the "Race Equality Unit", and "work with major employers, including the NHS, to encourage robust policies and training that prevent and respond to religious hatred across the workforce."
This means more DEI in public services, and more taxpayer money wasted on trying to create particular social outcomes - rather than focusing on the core duties of any given public service.
In 2024, Valdo Calocane, a Portuguese national born in Guinea-Bissau, was sentenced for killing three people in Nottingham on a psychotic rampage. Calocane had been known to authorities for years, but wasn't sectioned because NHS workers had been cautioned that black men are overrepresented in mental health facilities. The Government's plans here are a recipe for more of the same - decisions taken in the name of 'anti-racism', or 'cohesion', rather than in the public interest. The results have been horrendous, and predictably so.
(5) "Adopt a non-statutory definition of anti-Muslim hostility". This is just an attempt to rebrand the Government's plans for an Islamophobia definition. It will make it harder to have open, public discussions about subjects like extremism, FGM, and the grooming gangs. If public officials fear being perceived as 'anti-Muslim', can we really expect them to carry out their jobs without fear or favour?
We have seen how fear of being perceived as racist can lead people to make terrible decisions, with disastrous results. Thousands of children were groomed, trafficked, and raped as a result of this fear. This definition will create yet more pretext for public officials to avoid confronting difficult truths.
And, worse, the Government now plans to appoint a "Special Representative on anti-Muslim hostility", meaning that they will employ a paid-up advocate for their new definition. The taxpayer will be paying for somebody to spend all day, every day, embedding these ideas into every area of public life, and punishing people for policies, or views, which they consider to be 'anti-Muslim'.
The list goes on and on. It's more DEI, more control over the lives of ordinary people, more policing of speech.
Rather than dealing with the root cause of the problem, the Government wants to continue 'managing tensions', and punishing people who raise concerns.
They seem to seriously believe that if they can curb discussion of these problems, the problems will go away.
That has never worked. It will not work this time.
We will resist these plans to smuggle in social engineering, under the guise of 'social cohesion'. We must not compromise on ideas like free speech, or on the importance of telling the truth, or on the value of meritocracy.
If we do these things, in the name of 'social cohesion', we will lose what made this country so successful for so long.
