Labour has written to the Co-Chair of the Conservative Party asking him to take urgent action to tackle Islamophobia in his party and across the UK.
Hate crime statistics for 2020/21 show that just under half of all religious hate crimes across England and Wales were targeted at Muslim people. To mark Islamophobia Awareness Month (November 2021), Anneliese Dodds MP, Labour Party Chair and Shadow Women and Equalities Secretary, and Afzal Khan MP, Labour’s Shadow Deputy Leader of the House and Chair of Labour Muslim Network, jointly wrote to Oliver Dowden MP calling on him to “do much more” to tackle the scourge of Islamophobia.
Dodds and Khan urged the Conservative Party to abandon what they call the “bizarre practice” of referring to ‘anti-Muslim hatred’ instead of Islamophobia and call on him to commit to adopting the APPG on British Muslims’ definition of Islamophobia. The Conservative Party remains the only major UK political party that has refused to adopt the definition, which has been endorsed by over 800 British Muslim organisations.
The letter also noted that the Party faces a series of looming deadlines set out in its response to the Singh Investigation into alleged racism and discrimination in the Conservative Party, which promised a ‘zero-tolerance approach to discrimination’ despite not mentioning Islamophobia once.
Arguing that Boris Johnson’s ongoing refusal to apologise publicly for offensive remarks about Muslim women “makes a mockery” of that commitment, Dodds and Khan called for the party Co-Chairs to “show some leadership” and apologise on the Prime Minister’s behalf.
They also called out the Prime Minister’s failure to respond to a letter from Khan warning about rising Islamophobia that was sent over a year ago and urged the Party to finally deliver the independent investigation into Islamophobia in the UK that it has promised.
The Labour Party has adopted the APPG definition and taken has taken proactive steps to tackle this hatred by adopting a new Code of Conduct on Islamophobia earlier this year.
