The UK’s ruling Conservative Party has made yet another attempt to appeal to the far right, with its new categorisation of extremism reportedly designed to further marginalise Muslims. The move is not surprising. All polls say the Conservatives will be routed in the upcoming elections, leaving the party desperate for support, no matter where it comes from. Also, Rishi Sunak’s premiership has instead given many of the most bigoted elements within the Conservative Party increased leeway to spout vile language — “our party can’t be racist since our PM is Indian”.
We are only a few weeks removed from former Conservative Party deputy chairman Lee Anderson going on a racist rant about how “Islamists...are in charge now. Sunak said the comments were “wrong”, but refused to call them “racist or Islamophobic”. Meanwhile, Sunak’s former home secretary, Suella Braverman, also of Indian descent, worked so hard to gain the support of extremists that she would have probably offered to deport herself if they promised to support her in a future party leadership challenge.
While the old definition also had weaknesses due to its focus on actions, the new one is overly broad in its focus on language and ideology, with the most common observation is that tough-talking — but otherwise non-violent — Muslim groups could fall under the law, while white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups might not. In fact, despite several studies finding far-right groups to be the biggest threat to the UK, Sunak explicitly referred to people protesting against Israeli war crimes as “a threat to democracy” or “extremist”. Meanwhile, in an earlier speech where he did call out “extreme rightwing” groups, he only mentioned “Islamists” by name, even though one of the biggest recent examples of racial tensions was the Leicester riots, which were incited by Hindutva activists.
And while it is true that anti-Semitic attacks have gone up since Hamas attacked Israel in October — a 147% increase — Islamophobic attacks are up by over 335%. Demonising ‘bad’ Muslims without doing anything to make law-abiding Muslims feel safer will not reduce Islamist extremism, it will further fuel it.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 18th, 2024
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