The first ever report on a working definition of Islamophobia has been “decisively influenced” by the controversial Muslim advocacy organisation MEND, a new report warns.
The definition has been proposed in a report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims, with one MP saying it should "now enable the serious work that needs to be done to tackle Islamophobia".
The definition calls it "a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness".
But Sir John Jenkins – a former ambassador who co-authored a Government review into the Muslim Brotherhood in 2015 - writes in a new Policy Exchange report: “It is clear that MEND, an organisation with a tarnished reputation in Government circles, has exerted an important intellectual influence on the APPG.”
Trevor Phillips, former chair of quality thinktank the Runnymede Trust, also writes that the new definition would “make life harder” for Muslims in the UK and reduce them to “the status of perpetual victims.”
The report was released on Thursday to coincide with a House of Lords debate on Islamophobia.
Sir John refers to the involvement of Dr Antonio Perra, an academic and senior policy analyst at MEND until July, in the report the APPG produced to launch the working definition of Islamophobia.
He writes: “The connection between the APPG report and the MEND agenda is not simply intellectual.
“Dr. Perra was, until recently, also a member of MEND but no mention is made of this affiliation. In a similar vein, the APPG makes reference to evidence it took from the 'Islamophobia Response Unit' (IRU). But it fails to mention that the IRU was created in April 2017 by MEND.”
He adds: "MEND has long been surrounded by controversy. Earlier this year, a senior MEND representative asserted that Muslims in the UK face a situation analogous to that of Jews in Nazi Germany before the Holocaust.
“Its former director of engagement, Azad Ali, is reported to have said in March 2017 that that month’s attack on Parliament, which killed five people, was 'not terrorism'.
“In February 2018, Sir Mark Rowley, the outgoing Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and former head of Counter-Terrorism Command, said that MEND was ‘seeking to undermine the state’s considerable efforts to tackle all hate crime’”.
Policy Exchange also highlights Professor David Miller of University of Bristol was involved in the APPG report.
It claims: "He is a conspiracy theorist recorded as having defended the comments which led to Ken Livingstone quitting the Labour Party (about Hitler supporting a Jewish homeland).
“He also called the concept of Israel a 'racist endeavour' and accused the Government of 'state propaganda' over its reaction to the Skripals’ poisoning in Salisbury.”
There is also a failure to tackle the issue of Islamism with the APPG report, according to Sir John.
He writes: ”The report makes little mention of Islamism, a mode of politics that is deeply contentious and is rejected by a majority of Muslims around the world – yet how can the question of how to respond to Islamism be disentangled from this issue?
“As noted, Islamist groups have in the past used allegations of 'Islamophobia' to shield themselves from criticism.
"Islamists inevitably conflate themselves with Islam, like Irish Republicans claimed to defend all Catholics. The same agenda has reappeared in the APPG report, but the connections with MEND and other like-minded groups have not on the face of it been made clear to the parliamentarians asked to support it.”
Last month’s Westminster launch to promote the Islamophobia definition, included APPG co-chairs Anna Soubry, a Conservative MP, Labour MP Wes Streeting and Baroness Warsi, the former Foreign Office Minister, who is treasurer of the APPG.
Also attending was Lord Nazir Ahmed, a peer who warned of a "Zionist lobby" and once claimed a prison sentence he served was the result of a Jewish conspiracy.
