Criticism of Islam is a Protected Belief, Judge Rules

In a landmark Employment Tribunal case, a judge has ruled that criticism of Islam is protected under the Equality Act. The Sunday Telegraph has more.

Patrick Lee, 61, was found guilty of misconduct by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) last April over posts on X. After a four-year disciplinary process, he was banned from the professional body and ordered to pay nearly £23,000 in costs.

The trade body ruled that 42 of his posts that criticised Islam, including calling the Prophet Mohammed a “monster”, were “either offensive or inflammatory or both”, adding that 29 were “designed to demean or insult Muslims”.

But following an Employment Tribunal hearing, the actuary has won legal protection for his beliefs.

It is the first time a court has ruled that “Islam-critical” beliefs are protected under the Equality Act 2010. Previous claimants had been told such views were not “worthy of respect in a democracy”.

The decision follows a 2021 ruling that Maya Forstater’s gender-critical beliefs were protected under the same law.

Ms Forstater later won her discrimination claim and her case has reshaped public debate on gender ideology. Mr Lee, whose final hearing in February will decide whether his posts on X were an expression of his protected belief and whether the regulator discriminated against him, thinks his case could have a similar impact.

He told the Sunday Telegraph: “I hope that it will embolden other people to speak up, and it will stop employers and regulators from gagging people when they’re making valid criticisms of Islam.”

On Saturday night, Lord Young of Acton, the head of the Free Speech Union, said the decision was an “important victory”.

“This landmark judgment will make it much harder for the Government to roll out an official, state-approved definition of ‘Islamophobia’,” he said.

I flesh out that point in a comment piece beneath the news story. The gist of my argument is as follows:

After this judgment, how can the Government hope to prohibit “Islamophobia” or “anti-Muslim hatred”, given that its definition, however tightly drawn, is bound to include describing Islam as “backward”, “a con trick”, “a dangerous cult”, “the root of the evil” and calling the Prophet Mohammed a “monster”?

Lee was banned from membership of the IFoA for two years and ordered to pay the regulator’s costs of £23,000 for saying all of those things after it received a complaint from, among others, a charity calling itself the Islamophobia Response Unit. Yet the Employment Tribunal has ruled that his “Islamic-critical” beliefs are protected.

Admittedly, he has not yet won outright. In the next stage of the case – which the Free Speech Union is funding – the Tribunal will have to decide whether Lee’s manifestation of his protected “Islamic-critical” beliefs, i.e. the tweets in which he expressed them, was appropriate. But the judge in the first stage has indicated he thinks they were.

He said: “I do not find that these tweets and the pleaded belief are mutually exclusive. Nor incompatible.”

Another reason for hesitating before declaring victory is that judgments in the Employment Tribunal do not set binding legal precedents. The reason the verdict in Maya Forstater’s case had such far-reaching consequences is because she won in the Employment Appeals Tribunal, having initially lost in the lower court.

Nevertheless, Judge Khan’s decision can be cited in other Employment Tribunal cases and the fact that Lee’s “Islamic-critical” beliefs have been given protected status will be persuasive. In future, anyone penalised for saying something “Islamophobic” – whether by a regulator, an employer or a university – will be able to point to this judgment. That renders the Government’s efforts to roll out an official definition of “Islamophobia” largely pointless.

Worth reading both articles in full.