Islamophobia in the United Kingdom refers to a set of discourses, behaviours and structures which express feelings of hatred, anxiety, fear, hostility and rejection towards Islam or Muslims in the United Kingdom. Islamophobia can manifest itself in a wide range of ways; including, discrimination in the workforce, negative coverage in the media, and violence against Muslims.
Defining Islamophobia in the United Kingdom Agreement on a legal, meaningful, and actionable definition of the term "Islamophobia" has, to date, proved difficult in the UK. A definition put forward by the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims in May 2019 was rejected by both the police and Government, on the grounds that it was too broad to enforce and had potential consequences for freedom of speech. In an interview with the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims, Professor Peter Hopkins of the centre for Hate Studies at University of Leicester stated that by not adopting a concrete definition for Islamophobia it may "encourage some people to continue to deny that Islamophobia is an issue in society."
In employment Many studies and surveys have concluded that Muslims face discrimination in the work force. Research in 2014 by Dr Nabil Khattab and Professor Ron Johnston using data from the Office for National Statistics' Labour Force Survey found that "Muslim men were up to 76% less likely to have a job of any kind compared to white, male British Christians of the same age and with the same qualifications." An April 2016 report by Nabil Khattab and Shereen Hussein found that first-generation Muslim women from Bangladesh were over six times more likely to be unemployed than White non-Muslim women when adjusting for factors such as "level of education, family situation and age." First generation Muslim Pakistani and Muslim Black women faced less discrimination but were still four times more likely to be unemployed than White non-Muslim women when adjusting for those same factors.
A September 2017 Social Mobility Commission report concluded that Muslims were being held back in the workplace by widespread Islamophobia, racism and discrimination. Despite outperforming their non-Muslim counterparts in education, Muslims were roughly half as likely to hold higher managerial, administrative, and professional occupations. Almost 50% of Muslim households are considered to be in poverty, compared with less than 20% in the overall population. The report listed barriers to success including negative stereotypes about Muslims, a lack of Muslim staff or role models in the classroom, bullying, and harassment. The report revealed that women wearing hijab face particular discrimination once entering the workplace. Professor Jacqueline Stevenson of Sheffield Hallam University, which led the research, stated that "Muslims are being excluded, discriminated against or failed at all stages of their transition from education to employment."
In education Islamophobia in schools is a growing concern for the United Kingdom, since projections show there may be an estimated 300,000 Muslim teenagers in the education system by 2021. Various incidents have occurred where students were attacked while near school or on campus. Studies show such actions are increasingly common after trigger incidences such as the Manchester bombing.Women and girls who wear the hijab are particularly targeted. According to the Tell Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks (Tell MAMA) organisation, it has been reported that around 6% or 53 accounts of reported incidents of Islamophobia have occurred in British educational institutions in 2017. Many of the incidents are associated with bullying and verbal abuse, such as calling a fellow peer a "terrorist" or taunting religious garments like the hijab. The Muslim Student Survey was sent out from the National Union of Students in 2017 to try to gather data on the subject of Islamophobia in educational environments. In this survey, nearly 33% of Muslim students reported either abuse or crime in their place of study. Most of these reports are believed to be directly related to Islamophobia.It also shows a disconnect when relating to such students, since only about four in ten reported Muslim students feel their student governments understand their needs.
In politics
Concerns were raised over comments made by Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith and his campaign team about the then Labour candidate for mayor, Sadiq Khan, during the 2016 London mayoral election, which attempted to link Khan to Islamist extremists. Public opinion polling at the time showed that 31% of Londoners were "uncomfortable" with the prospect of a Muslim mayor. The government issued Casey Review into Integration and Opportunity which aimed to examine the conditions for immigrants to the United Kingdom was criticised for its over focus of the Muslim community, as well as deeper methodical failings. In 2014, over a third of Muslims in the UK said politicians often make bigoted comments towards Muslims.
In October 2017, Conservative MP Bob Blackman was criticised for hosting a parliamentary event attended by far-right Hindu nationalist Tapan Ghosh. The conference was also attended by Home Secretary Amber Rudd and First Secretary of State Damian Green, who distanced themselves from Ghosh's views a week later. Prior to the event, Ghosh had praised the persecution of Muslims in Myanmar, said Muslims were "all jihadis," and that Muslims should be forced to leave their religion if they come to a western country. Blackman responded to criticism by saying that he did not regret sharing a platform with Ghosh, and that Ghosh was not Islamophobic. The Muslim Council of Britain condemned parliament for welcoming "a man who trades in propagating hatred against Muslims in India." On 26 October, Labour MP Naz Shah wrote to Home Secretary Amber Rudd asking why Ghosh was granted a UK visa.
In 2018, the Muslim Council of Britain wrote to the Conservative Party calling for an urgent inquiry, following a number of allegations of Islamophobia. A Conservative councillor, Stephen Ardley had been suspended after he allegedly posted Islamophobic comments about Sadiq Khan, who had by this point been elected as Mayor of London. Ardley had said it was "unbelievable" that a Muslim had been elected, and went on to describe those who voted for him as "blind".
Boris Johnson, British Prime Minister from 2019 until 2022, was involved in several incidences of Islamophobic rhetoric, criticised by many Muslims, including Conservative peer and anti-Islamophobia campaigner Baroness Warsi. In 2005, Johnson wrote in his book The Dream of Rome that Islam caused the Muslim World to be "literally centuries behind the West". In the aftermath of the 2005 London bombings, Johnson questioned the loyalty of British Muslims and wrote that "Islam is the problem." Writing in a column in The Daily Telegraph in August 2018, Johnson stated that Islamic full-face coverings made Muslim women look like "letterboxes". A study by Tell MAMA revealed that in the months following these comments, hate crime against Muslims rose by 375%, with many perpetrators directly referencing Johnson's comments.
In the media
The British media began adopting the term 'Islamophobia' in the late 1980s in order to describe the rise in negative feelings towards the Muslim community. A report from the Runnymede Trust later served to more dramatically move the issue into the public light in 1997. British newspapers, especially those on the political right, frequently position Islam and Muslims as threats to security and as being incompatible with the British way of life.
The media, particularly the Daily Mail and the Daily Express, were criticised in 2017 by the SETA Foundation for Political Economic and Social Research for Islamophobic comments on migrants. A December 2015 survey by City University, London of journalists found an underrepresentation of Muslims in the field. Only 0.4% of British journalists identified as Muslim or Hindu, 31.6% were Christian, and 61.1% had "no religion." Cited in a report covering the ethics of the British Press, Lord Justice Leveson wrote that "the evidence demonstrates that sections of the press betray a tendency, which is far from being universal or even preponderant, to portray Muslims in a negative light."Soubry, Anna, and Streeting, Wes. "Islamophobia Defined." All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims, 27 November 2018. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/599c3d2febbd1a90cffdd8a9/t/5bfd1ea3352f531a6170ceee/1543315109493/Islamophobia Defined.pdf.
An academic paper by Katy Sian published in the journal South Asian Popular Culture in 2011 explored the question of how "forced conversion narratives" arose around the Sikh diaspora in the United Kingdom. Sian, who reports that claims of conversion through courtship on campuses are widespread in the UK, says that rather than relying on actual evidence they primarily rest on the word of "a friend of a friend" or on personal anecdote. According to Sian, the narrative is similar to accusations of "white slavery" lodged against the Jewish community and foreigners to the UK and the US, with the former having ties to antisemitism that mirror the Islamophobia betrayed by the modern narrative. Sian expanded on these views in 2013's Mistaken Identities, Forced Conversions, and Postcolonial Formations.
On 16 June 2017, BBC Radio 4 acknowledged a complaint that it failed to properly introduce or challenge Frank Gaffney's "conspiracy theories about Muslims and Islam" when he appeared as a guest on Today.
In an article for The Independent, writer Sufyan Ismail was critical of the media coverage of the 2017 Beckton acid attack, stating that most mainstream media failed to cover the incident or "at best relegated it to a minor story". Ismail suggested that had the roles of the victims and perpetrator been reversed the case would have been headline news. He compared the acid attack to violent hate-murders of Muslims that had received little coverage in contrast with the murder of Jo Cox or the murder of Lee Rigby.
In August 2017, The Sun published a column by Trevor Kavanagh which questioned what actions British society should take to deal with "The Muslim Problem". Kavanagh cited an opinion piece by Labour Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities Sarah Champion MP several days previously as a reason that it was "now acceptable" to describe Muslims as a "specific rather than cultural problem". Sean O'Grady of The Independent said that the column used language reminiscent of Nazi propaganda and Nazi phrases. A joint complaint was made to IPSO by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Tell MAMA and Faith Matters. A statement by the groups said: "The printing of the phrase 'The Muslim Problem' – particularly with the capitalisation and italics for emphasis – in a national newspaper sets a dangerous precedent, and harks back to the use of the phrase 'The Jewish Problem' in the last century." A cross-party group of over 100 MPs from the Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens subsequently signed a letter to the editor of The Sun demanding action over the column. The letter stated the MPs "were truly outraged by the hate and bigotry" in Kavanagh's column.
In the justice system A ruling in March 2016 by the European Court of Human Rights effectively cleared of criminal responsibility security officials responsible for the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005. De Menezes was trailed and then shot dead at London's Stockwell tube station by jumpy security officers who mistook him for a suicide bomber a fortnight after multiple bombings on the capital's transport network in 2005. Critics of the ruling claimed that it upheld the right of the authorities to kill potentially innocent people on the basis of mere supposition and racial/religious prejudice.