How electoral panic is driving Britain toward blasphemy law

Labour is in electoral panic. They've already lost four MPs to Pakistani sectarians and Islamists. Now they're terrified of losing the entire Muslim bloc vote, so they're going back to their Muslim core vote with an offer, an official Islamophobia definition. It's political protection money disguised as social justice.

To sell this to the wider public, they promise it will protect Muslims from hatred and promote harmony. They swear it will never stifle debate or censor journalists. They insist it poses no threat to free speech.

They lied.

Their public promises were always meaningless. This week, the Observer exposed the truth. The government's Islamophobia definition is being built in secret, shown only to hand-picked allies while critics are deliberately shut out. Officials are drafting policy that could reshape speech in Britain like a backroom deal.

Which is exactly what it is.

The "Safe Space" Lie

The Free Speech Union asked the Ministry of Housing to release the proposed definition. Officials refused. They claimed ministers needed a "safe space" to consider policy options privately.

They want a safe space from the same government that wants to criminalise criticism of Islam.

While claiming confidentiality, ministers were secretly inviting selected groups into the department to view the definition. They excluded those with expertise and welcomed only those with political utility. They chose groups guaranteed to nod along and never ask awkward questions.

This amounts to a complete stitch-up masquerading as consultation.

What They're Really Building

The government claims this definition will "combat prejudice." The secrecy tells the real story.

This is definition laundering. When you define Islamophobia as racism, criticism of Islam turns into racial hatred, questioning Islamist ideology turns into bigotry, and whistleblowing turns into racism. This creates bureaucratic blasphemy, not through Parliament but through definitions quietly adopted by councils, police forces, and HR departments.

Universities already use non-statutory antisemitism definitions to investigate academics. Police forces cite hate crime guidance to question people over social media posts. Councils embed equality definitions into staff codes that make challenging certain ideologies a disciplinary offence. Scotland's Hate Crime Act shows where this leads, with police investigating comedians and politicians for speech offences. Non-Crime Hate Incidents allow police to record and investigate perfectly legal speech because someone claimed to be offended.

The law never changes, but what you can say within it does. This is how policy becomes law without Parliament, accountability, or consent.

This is how grooming gang scandals were buried, journalists silenced, whistleblowers destroyed, and communities branded racist for demanding truth.

This isn't Labour's first attempt. In opposition, they adopted the All-Party Parliamentary Group definition that legal experts and free speech advocates condemned as dangerously broad. They've spent years preparing the soft censorship infrastructure. Scotland's Hate Crime Act offers a preview of the future, where police investigate comedians and politicians for speech offences. This isn't a policy glitch, it's a decade-long political project reaching its conclusion.

Once you control the language, you control everything that follows. Rotherham Council officials admitted they avoided investigating Pakistani networks because they feared being labeled racist. Police in multiple towns used "cultural sensitivity" training that taught them questioning certain communities was discriminatory. Social workers were instructed that removing children from Muslim families could be seen as Islamophobic. Journalists were told that terms like "grooming gangs" were inflammatory and "Muslim rape gangs" was hate speech. The method is always the same, redefine accurate description as prejudice and anyone telling the truth becomes the problem.

Who They Locked Out

The Free Speech Union was denied access because they might object to a definition designed to override hate crime law.

Fiyaz Mughal, who monitored anti-Muslim hate for government for over a decade, warned that Labour's definition would destroy free speech. His reward was exclusion.

Even the Equality and Human Rights Commission was shut out. The government's own equality watchdog was banned from a process affecting equality law, discrimination, policing, and free expression.

The government locked out its own watchdog through deliberate design, not incompetence.

Why Hide It?

If this definition posed no threat to free speech, journalists, or campaigners, they would publish it and welcome scrutiny. If it truly protected Muslims, they would let the public judge.

Instead they treat it like contraband.

This is the government that called grooming gangs a myth, smeared whistleblowers as troublemakers, branded communities racist for demanding truth, and claims criticism of ideology equals hatred of people.

The psychological operation is simple. They redefine dissent as hatred. They redefine scrutiny as bigotry. They redefine truth-telling as racism. Once the language shifts, the argument is already lost before it begins.

Now they want power to decide what you're allowed to say about Islam. They insist it won't silence dissent while silencing everyone who might dissent from it.

Redefining Britain in Secret

Whatever definition ministers produce will be adopted nationwide. Councils will embed it in policy. Police will cite it in investigations. Universities will use it against students. Corporations will weaponise it through HR.

All of this will happen without a vote, without debate, without scrutiny.

This definition is being built to control British speech by delegitimising criticism of Islamism, chilling investigation of extremism, and branding dissenters as racists.

We've seen this pattern across Oldham, Rotherham, Rochdale, and Telford, culminating in the national inquiry they sabotaged.

What This Really Is

No community should face hatred. Muslims deserve the same protections as everyone else. Those protections already exist in law.

This has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with silence.

A society that cannot name what's happening cannot defend itself. The Rotherham inquiry found that more than 1,400 children were abused because officials feared being called racist for naming Pakistani grooming networks. In Rochdale, police dropped investigations rather than face accusations of targeting Muslim communities. In Telford, social workers were trained that discussing the ethnicity and religion of perpetrators was discriminatory. The problem cannot be solved if it cannot be described. Truth becomes impossible once accurate language is reclassified as hate speech.

The Line Must Be Drawn Now

If Britain allows this definition to pass uncontested, the consequences will echo for decades. A new blasphemy culture will take root, enforced not by law but by institutions terrified of controversy and activists hungry for power.

Under this definition, investigative journalism into Islamism dies. Grooming gang survivors will be silenced. Whistleblowers will face prosecution. Academic research becomes impossible. Political criticism becomes criminal. Once embedded in our institutions, this definition will never be reversed. The bureaucracy that adopts it will defend it with the ferocity of religious zealots.

But it can be stopped. It can be exposed. It can be dismantled. And it must be, before the language is captured, before the debate is closed, before dissent becomes illegal.

The line is here. The moment is now. Stop this definition or watch Britain disappear.

I am Raja Miah. For seven years, I led a small team that exposed how politicians protected the rape gangs.

I cannot do this on my own. I need you to stand with me and help make sure we can stop the sectarian takeover of the places we call home.

We’re running out of time. Without the numbers, they will win. It’s as simple as that.

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Raja Miah MBE