Activist Advising Rayner Over Islamophobia Definition Sparks Conflict of Interest Row
Businesswoman Akeela Ahmed, who is helping to draw up a definition of Islamophobia for Angela Rayner, has become embroiled in a conflict of interest row after being offered a key role in policing it. The Telegraph has the story.
Akeela Ahmed is one of five people on a working group advising the Deputy Prime Minister on a new definition of Islamophobia.
On Monday, Ms Rayner’s department announced that the British Muslim Trust (BMT) – which Ms Ahmed is due to lead as chief executive – would receive up to £1 million a year to monitor incidents of Islamophobia and “raise awareness” of hate crime.
It follows a decision by Ms Rayner’s department to cut funding for a rival Islamophobia reporting service, the Tell Mama organisation, which was founded by Fiyaz Mughal, an outspoken critic of creating a new official definition of Islamophobia.
The disclosures follow criticism of the “secretive” process to draw up a definition and warnings that the proposals to define anti-Muslim hatred could have a “chilling effect” on free speech.
Lord Toby Young, the Director of the Free Speech Union, said Ms Ahmed should step down from the working group. “This is a clear conflict of interest since Akeela Ahmed’s new job will be to monitor and tackle Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred,” he said.
“And the more broadly the working group defines it, the more work there will be for the BMT to do and the more money it will be given by the Government. I think she has no choice but to step down from the working group.”
He said it was “odd” that Tell Mama, an organisation which had recorded anti-Muslim hatred for a decade, had been dropped because its founder opposed the Government’s attempt to define Islamophobia.
“It suggests that the Government has already decided to impose a dangerously authoritarian definition, zealously monitoring social media posts for traces of ‘Islamophobia’ and then petitioning Ofcom to take them down, before it has even read any of the consultation responses,” he said.
Claire Coutinho, the Shadow Equalities Minister, said: “I’ve been saying for weeks that a definition being cooked up behind closed doors by activists with extreme views on how to define Islamophobia is only going to create more division.
“Labour has even refused my requests to open up the working group to let counter-terror experts, free speech advocates and grooming gang victims join the working group.
“Now it looks like one of the members is set to benefit financially from taxpayers’ money being handed out by the government she’s supposed to be independently advising. It’s almost like the process was designed to lose public support.”
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: In the Times, Melanie Phillips says the ‘Islamophobia’ law is a dangerous obsession, with polls showing it would trigger a huge Reform victory. “Could the liberal elite be any more out of touch?” she asks.
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I notice no Hinduophobia, Buddhaophobia, Catholicophobia. So why Isamophobia? Don’t the Labour Party realise that after they bend over backwards to appease Muslims that they will abandon them and only vote for Muslim candidates?
From my experience socialists are not very bright. Anyone who adheres to an ideological position formed in the 19th century is bound to fail. Unless of course their plan is to take us back to those conditions.
“Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.”
Thomas Sowell
“England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality.”
George Orwell
“Socialism is fine until you run out of other peoples money”
Margaret Thatcher
I for one am sick to death of this stupid word, seeing it written everywhere and the obsession with it. ‘Islamophobia’ is a made-up nonsense word. We know who invented it and we know why. I’d like to see the back of it and in place a far more fitting ‘Anglophobia’, because that is what the problem is, and shamefully, by many native oikophobes, not just the hostiles that they’re enthusiastically importing.
”Anti-English sentiment or Anglophobia (from Latin Anglus “English” and Greek φόβος, phobos, “fear”) means opposition to, dislike of, fear of, hatred of, or the oppression and persecution of England and/or English people. Generally, the term is sometimes used more loosely as a synonym for anti-British sentiment. Its opposite is Anglophilia.”
https://www.definitions.net/definition/anglophobia
Also, it’s always Jim O’Clock somewhere. He needs to get familiar with my new favourite word ‘oikophobia’, though; “How do we fight back? How do we defend the values that made our societies strong? How can a divided society of strangers restore freedom, reason, tolerance, and truth when a tsunami of malign propaganda and foreign funding floods us?” (Major Andrew Fox) We start by telling the truth – plainly, unapologetically, and without flinching. We fight back by ripping off the mask of “tolerance” and exposing what now stands behind it: a war on civilisation, waged from within. This isn’t just a battle of ideas. It’s a battle of will. The West is being dismantled by a coalition: the postmodern Left that despises its own heritage, and Islamist movements that want to replace it with a theocracy. They’ve joined forces – not out of shared values, but shared enemies. The family. The nation. The Church. The West. How do we defend the values that made us strong? By remembering what they are – and acting as if they still matter. Truth, not relativism. Law, not mob rule. Borders, not open gates. Duty, not victimhood. These weren’t abstract slogans – they were… Read more »
How do we fight back?
Pick a simple task – defund the BBC. Without the Establishment megaphone there will be no drip, drip, drip of propaganda and other voices will get more exposure.
If you want to make the task even easier merely remove the legal requirement to buy a TV licence and let people vote with their wallets.
How can it be possible for reasonable people to be anything other than utterly aghast at a system that insists on mutilating the genitals of their children?
I’m not phobic about it – just find it utterly disgusting and entirely reprehensible.
Suffer little children
So is the definition of being an Islamophobic, a person or persons who are not followers of the Islam religion?
People who do not make their women and girls cover themselves in a black shroud.
Are Gay people Islamophobes because that is considered Haram?
Is anyone who brings dog into a Muslims house an Islamophobe?
Eating Pork or bacon in front of a Muslim is that considered Islamophobia?
Why I ask does a religion that is not native to this country or part of the culture get to be given precedence and priority over the majority, native British?
Is mentioning any of the nasty verses in the Koran or nasty hadiths going to be classed as Islamophobia as they give a, totally correct, impression that Islam is violent, misogynistic and homophobic? I bet this will be the case, time to empty the prisons of violent criminals to make room for all the people who say/tweet hurty words.
But she seems such a lovely lady.
Have you been drinking?
I think Marcus was taking the Micturate.
The government and the Anti-white Party are attempting to hold on to their Muslim voters by introducing the tyranny-enabling word “islamophobia” into British law. It is designed to put Islam as a body of thought, and any behaviour of Muslims (now called “expressions of muslimness”) which derive from Islam’s holy texts beyond criticism.
What will this mean for free-speech? For example, since 1979 there have been over 48,000 Muslim terrorist attacks world-wide in which hundreds of thousands of people (mainly Muslims) have been murdered, and over a million people maimed. Even though only a minority of Muslims support these murders, given that they are excused by reference to the Koran etc, they are clearly an “expression of muslimness”. Under this proposed change in the law it will become illegal to point out the link between Muslim holy texts and Muslim religious murders.
This is a classic I’m spartacus moment.
The bastards can never cope with 5 or 10 million offenders against this ridiculous, literally insane law.
So bring it on, I say.
Team effort.
Question – What might be the majority religion of those people who are having bombs made or funded by British, American or Israeli sources dropped on them?
You need to ask Hamas that question. Hamas want as many dead Palestinians as possible because they know there are many useful idiots in the West that will respond emotionally and sentimentally when Hamas says this or that many women and children were ‘murdered’ by Israel. None of the useful idiots question the claims by Hamas while Israel is subject to impossible scrutiny where no answer is allowed. ‘From us here in Gaza, [Israel] will never get anything but guns, fire, martyrdom, death, and killing.’ Yahya Sinwar ‘These are necessary sacrifices,‘ [Gazan Civilians] Yahya Sinwar ‘We make the headlines only with blood,’ Yahya Sinwar ‘Tear down the border, and we will tear out their hearts from their bodies,’ Yahya Sinwar ‘Yes, we are a people that yearn for death, just as our enemies yearn for life. We yearn for martyrdom for the same goal for which our leaders died, just as the others love their seats of power.’ Ismail Haniyeh ‘The blood of the women, children, and elderly… we are the ones who need this blood, so it awakens within us the revolutionary spirit.’ Ismail Haniyeh ——————————————————————————————————————– “If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be… Read more »
Labour Communists will kiss the Ass of Muhammadanism to try to buy the votes of the worst religion in humanity. They’re traitors to the native people. They’ll pay dearly when the civil war comes.
I pray that I live long enough to see their trials.
Why don’t we all club together and buy a dictionary for Ms Rayner. The OED (I prefer to use an edition that is at least 30 years old) contains definitions of both Islam and phobia. One can easily, trivially even, work out the definition of the compound noun in question. Was Ms Rayner not taught how to use a dictionary? Silly question!
A phobia is a mental health condition, irrational fear of something, eg, agoraphobia, fear of open spaces, mysophobia, fear of germs/ contamination or arachnophobia, fear of spiders. As such, it needs a medical and not a legal definition unless the intent is to pathologize dissent for political reasons (which it obviously is).
Shocking that those involved are so willing to advertise such a clear conflict of interest.