ISLAMOPHOBIA REPORT

ISLAMOPHOBIA IN United Kingdom
opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, as a ‘terrorist sympathiser’ for his opposition to
the bombing of Syria by the UK, proposed in the wake of the Paris attacks.
Despite calls for an apology, the prime minister has refused to retract this statement.
This shift in discourse is so extreme that an establishment figure can be
maligned in the same way as a member of a marginalised community, showing
how Islamophobic rhetoric has been instrumentalised and normalised in the
UK today. Whilst it has been extremely effective in closing down political spaces
for Muslims, this rhetoric has in actuality closed down a great deal of space
for dissent according to cause. The reach of Islamophobia beyond the Muslim
community will be highlighted elsewhere in this report.
This narrative of exclusion is part of the longue duree of history and has
been part of European cultural identities, however its latest manifestation has
in part been instrumentalised by neo-conservative circles. It has been argued 8
that in the UK the Henry Jackson Society is deeply embedded in this process.
Whilst claiming to be a bipartisan think tank HJS’s activities are distinctly
neoconservative:
• Promoting a strongly pro-Israel agenda;
• Organising anti-Islam activities, focusing particularly on British Muslim students;
• Advocating a transatlantic military and security regime;
Furthermore, the evolution of HJS into a right-wing think tank also indicates
that it does not exist for the public benefit; it has increasingly embraced an illiberal
approach domestically towards British Muslims in particular. This trend is particularly
pronounced in its support for limiting the civil liberties of Muslim charities in
the name of the ‘War on Terror’.
The impact of the Trojan Horse affair of 2014 continued to be felt, even
though a parliamentary committee confirmed that despite allegations there was
no evidence behind the claims that there was an Islamist conspiracy to take over
schools in Birmingham. The narrative of British values that arose as part of this
8. Griffin, T. et. al. (June 2015). The Henry Jackson Society and the Degeneration of British Neo-Conservatism:
Liberal Interventionism, Islamophobia and the War on Terror. London: The Cordoba Foundation.
islamophobiaeurope.com
555