UK politicians are whipping up an anti-Muslim panic. Where’s the evidence?
A pro-Palestinian demonstration in Parliament Square in London on 21 February 2024
Peter Oborne writes in Middle East Eye on 23 February 2024:
Over the last few months a troubling narrative has steadily been gathering strength in British politics.
It goes: radical Islamists are taking over the streets of London. They are using their muscle to intimidate politicians, and are destroying the authority of parliament. As a result, democracy itself is under threat.
Over the past 24 hours, this narrative that British Muslims are corrupting the British political system has gone viral. Robert Jenrick, a former cabinet minister, speaking in the Commons on Thursday, said that Britain has “allowed our streets to be dominated by Islamist extremists”. He spoke of “a pattern of Islamist extremists intimidating those they disagree with, backed by the prospect of violence”. Penny Mordaunt, leader of the House of Commons, replied that she “could not agree more”.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak fanned the flames, warning that “we should never let extremists intimidate us into changing the way in which parliament works.” These are powerful accusations – and neither Sunak nor Jenrick produced evidence to support them.
Islamophobic rhetoric
It’s important to explain the context of this latest epidemic of Islamophobic rhetoric. It was unleashed in the wake of Wednesday’s chaotic events at Westminster after the Scottish National Party (SNP) tabled a Commons motion supporting a ceasefire in Gaza.
This motion was acutely embarrassing for Labour leader Keir Starmer, many of whose MPs are deeply opposed to his support for the war. This helps explain why both the SNP and the Conservatives tore into Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle when he over-ruled the advice of his Commons clerks and defied parliamentary convention to allow a Labour Party amendment which got Starmer off the hook.
Amidst furious calls for him to quit, Speaker Hoyle went on the record to say that when making his controversial decision he had been “very, very concerned” about the safety of MPs, their families and members of their staff.
Yesterday, he came back to the Commons to repeat his alarm: “The details of the things that have been brought to me are absolutely frightening,” adding that “if my mistake is looking after members [of parliament], I am guilty”.
He made clear that he had been influenced in his decision-making by Starmer’s own concern about threats to his MPs. The Speaker, however, did not explain exactly who it was that threatened the safety of Labour MPs – but nobody at Westminster was in any doubt who he was referring to: Muslims.
A media storm
As night follows day, the British media supported these claims.
Alicia Fitzgerald, a political reporter, fuelled the sense of panic on Talk TV when she said she’d been talking to Labour MPs, particularly women, who were “absolutely terrified” of leaving the Commons in the face of a pro-Palestinian “mob” outside. He [sic] added: “We have crossed a line now. We are not a properly functioning democracy if this is a factor in how our elected representatives act.”
Mail on Sunday journalist Dan Hodges tweeted that he had spoken to an MP “who told me he had weighed up his own physical safety when deciding on how to vote on yesterday’s Gaza motion”.