Labour's obsession with ‘Islamophobia' will put more girls in danger

Labour politicians are frantically trying to convince us that they take the grooming gangs scandal seriously. I do hope they'll forgive my cynicism, but I don't believe a word of it.
Because, whether they realise it or not, their Government will soon be giving grooming gangs a huge helping hand.
Here's how. On Monday – the very same day that Sir Keir Starmer finally bowed to pressure to hold a national inquiry – the Government's 'Islamophobia Working Group' quietly sent out an email to unidentified figures, inviting them to help it in its efforts to draw up a new official definition of 'Islamophobia' – which it will ultimately present to ministers to consider.
We'll just have to wait and see what definition this group comes up with, but we'd better hope it's not the same as the one advocated by Islamophobia Defined, a 2018 report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims. That report stated that 'age-old stereotypes and tropes about Islam', such as 'paedophilia' and 'Asian grooming gangs', serve to 'heighten vulnerability of Muslims to hate crimes'.
But hang on just a moment. Are 'Asian grooming gangs' really no more than a 'stereotype'? And, if so, does that mean that even talking about the grooming gangs scandal is Islamophobic?
At any rate, you may or may not be astonished to learn that that 2018 report was endorsed by local authorities in various parts of the country – including Oxford, Newcastle and Calderdale in West Yorkshire – where 'Asian grooming gangs' had previously operated. You may also be fascinated to learn that the report carried an approving foreword by the then Conservative MP Dominic Grieve – who is now the chairman of the aforementioned 'Islamophobia Working Group'. A group which, incidentally, contains Baroness Shaista Gohir, who in 2013 wrote a report arguing that the 'media coverage being given to British Pakistani offenders' was 'disproportionate', and that this was helping to 'fuel racism and Islamophobia'.
To be clear: I'm not complaining that the 'Islamophobia Working Group' contains the wrong people. I'm complaining that it exists at all. Because there's a serious risk that introducing a new official definition of 'Islamophobia' will help grooming gangs evade justice in future.
Put it like this: the police's treatment of previous victims was often disgraceful – as the national inquiry, we must hope, will fully lay bare. Future victims, however, may be scared to even report the crime for fear that they themselves will be arrested. They'll be understandably worried that, armed with a new definition of 'Islamophobia', police will charge them with peddling racist 'tropes'. As a result, these future victims may stay silent.
Labour's obsession with 'Islamophobia', therefore, will put more British girls in danger, and that obsession is widespread enough on the Left as it is. In April 2023, Suella Braverman – the then Tory home secretary – wrote an article for a newspaper in which she said the grooming gangs were 'groups of men, almost all British-Pakistani'. For this she was furiously condemned by self-proclaimed anti-racists. Nick Lowles, the chief executive of Hope not Hate, declared that 'child sexual abuse has long been a trope' deployed by 'the far Right in their Islamophobic narratives about the Muslim community'. By 'singling out British Pakistani men', he went on, Mrs Braverman 'irresponsibly stirs up hate'.
I've no doubt that saying this made Mr Lowles feel wonderfully noble and righteous. But, as Baroness Casey put it this week, in her excoriating new report on the grooming gangs, many organisations turned a blind eye to the mass rape of children by British Pakistani men 'for fear of appearing racist'. Bearing that in mind, what do we think will happen once Labour brings in a new definition of 'Islamophobia'? Will such organisations be more likely to speak up in future?
Call me a pessimist, but I have a funny feeling that they won't. In fact, I think they'll be even less likely than ever.
All of which is why Sir Keir Starmer must urgently drop this idiotically misconceived venture. We already have laws against racial discrimination. There is no need to add special protections for one group in particular. Especially when they might inadvertently help to protect not just ordinary, innocent Muslims, but child-rapists.
The Government's job is to prevent such scandals from happening, not prevent them from being exposed.

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