Connor Tomlinson
Last week, the Runnymede Trust published a report, forecasting a ‘bleak and dystopian’ future for Muslims in the UK. Chief executive Shabna Begum told the Guardian that
“Sayeeda Warsi coined the term ‘the dinner table test’, but I think we’ve got even beyond that… The way politicians talk about Muslims now is so derogatory, it’s in the most brutally divisive terms.
“Politicians are engaging in a popularity contest and that popularity contest is measured by how far they are willing to bully and demonise Muslims. And that has become not just an acceptable kind of currency, but a way in which to earn your political stripes.”
The Trust is infamous for having introduced the term “Islamophobia” into common parlance in 1997 — the same year the Blair government came to power, and proceeded to revolutionise Britain’s legal system. “Islamophobia” was devised as a means to silence criticism of Islam by the terrorist group the Muslim Brotherhood. Former Islamist, Abdur-Rahman Muhammad confirmed a meeting took place where members of a Muslim Brotherhood outfit, the International Institute for Islamic Thought, plotted to “emulate the homosexual activists who used the term ‘homophobia’ to silence critics.” It seems to have been successful, given former Prime Minister, Lord David Cameron refused to ban the Brotherhood in 2015 — despite them being banned in multiple Islamic countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, and sanctioned in Qatar and Turkey.
The report was supported by both Baroness Warsi and the Muslim Council of Britain. In September, Warsi, the former Chair of the Conservative Party under Cameron, announced that she had withdrawn her party whip in protest against “how far right my Party has moved”. She used the news to promote her new book, titled Muslims Don’t Matter. As our review on Courage noted, this book about Islam features staggeringly few references to the Quran (two) or the Prophet Mohammed (four).
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