David Drover

The Free Speech Union exposed that all five members of the Working Group tasked with drafting the official definition of Islamophobia had troubling links to Islamist organisations, including the Muslim Council of Britain and MEND. The Working Group held a consultation so people could help shape what became the “anti-Muslim hostility” definition. Given the public interest, the FSU asked which groups and individuals had been consulted. Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Timothy submitted a Freedom of Information request. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) replied that it had deleted all the responses — in what appears to be against the Government’s own data policy. The FSU then threatened Angela Rayner’s department with legal action. Now the department’s most senior civil servant says the responses do exist and remain on its data system, but the department will not disclose who was consulted. So what is going on? Were we told the responses had been deleted to conceal the fact that Islamist extremists had the chance to influence the definition? We are now told that an Islamophobia tsar will be announced imminently. Given Rayner and her department’s record, who on earth could it be?

@AngelaRayner, did you allow Islamist extremists to influence the drafting of the “anti-Muslim hostility” definition? It’s a simple yes-or-no question. If not, why did your department claim that it had deleted all responses to the Working Group’s consultation, only to say — after the Free Speech Union threatened legal action — that the responses were still held on its data system? And why does your department still refuse to disclose who responded to the consultation? While we’re at it: if, as your Permanent Secretary confirmed in a letter to @NJ_Timothy, ministers had no involvement in this decision, who is running your department? The public deserves to know the truth.

In Britain today, we have a de facto Islamic blasphemy law, ushered in by the Labour Government’s official “anti-Muslim hostility” definition. It is being enforced by the police, the courts and now the Government’s own counter-terrorism programme, Prevent. A programme tasked with stopping people becoming terrorists is being used by activists and extremists to silence legitimate criticism or mockery of Islam. In recent weeks, comedian @JohnCleese was referred to Prevent and faced calls from Muslim activists to have his Birmingham show cancelled over comments he made about Islam on social media. Reform UK Shadow Chancellor @RobertJenrick was reported to the Metropolitan Police and referred to Prevent after he called radical Islam the biggest threat to our country and called for the burqa to be banned on @danwootton’s show. Robert isn’t wrong, is he? Radical Islam is a threat. MI5 has said that Islamist terrorism is the biggest threat to Britain. Restore Britain leader @RupertLowe10 was reported to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards for linking Muslims and Pakistanis to the rape gangs, despite Baroness Casey’s report concluding that Muslim men of Pakistani heritage were disproportionately involved in these heinous crimes. Conservative Shadow Justice Secretary @NJ_Timothy was reported to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards by Labour MPs, branded “Islamophobic” and faced calls to resign from then Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer after criticising a mass Muslim prayer event in Trafalgar Square. Reform UK was reported to the Equality and Human Rights Commission by 28 Labour MPs over its comments criticising Islam and the same mass Muslim prayer event. It was the Islamist website 5Pillars that broke all these stories. A Home Office unit, RICU, has even labelled the group a “subject of Islamist extremist concern”. These activists know what they are doing. The sinister weaponisation of Prevent will undermine public trust in the programme. We must not let an Islamic blasphemy law take root in Britain. Watch FSU Campaigns Officer @MaxHThompson 👇

🚨 THE GOVERNMENT IS PLANNING THE MOST ONEROUS AND DANGEROUS CENSORSHIP REGIME SINCE THE REIGN OF CHARLES I. Andy Burnham used his first appearance on the world stage to launch the National Centre for Information Defence, citing alleged Russian interference in British democracy. Today, Mr Burnham again claimed that Russia interfered in the Brexit referendum by spreading disinformation. These allegations have been thoroughly investigated and found to be false. Why is he raising them now? Because Brexit runs counter to his aims and the progressive orthodoxies he believes in. This is misinformation being used to justify a crackdown on misinformation. Following the referendum, the highly respected Oxford Internet Institute found that posts linked to Russia amounted to a minuscule proportion of the posts people had read on social media: less than one-thousandth of 1 per cent. People need to see what is happening. The Government is spreading misinformation about misinformation. Watch the latest episode of the FSU Podcast with FSU General Secretary Lord Young and Director of Research and Policy @DavidRoseUK on our YouTube channel 👇

Across the country, the police are becoming increasingly zealous in their policing of speech, particularly online. Yet again, we have a clear example of the dire state of free speech in this country. In the past five years, 62,199 people have been arrested for speech-related offences, including for posts online. This is not right in a free and democratic society. Vexatious complaints to the police from activists, accusing people of spreading or stirring up hatred, are becoming far too frequent. If you need help, contact @SpeechUnion at [email protected] or fill in our web form. We’re here to help.

Andy Burnham has announced at the UN a new ‘National Centre for Information Defence’ to wage war against ‘untrue narratives’. He claims that “everything we hold dear” is under attack from so-called “misinformation”. This might be the most censorious thing a modern British Government has done. We already have NSOIT, the Government Communication Service, the Media Monitoring Unit, RICU, the Defending Democracy Taskforce, the Joint Election Security and Preparedness Unit, the FCDO’s Information Threats and Influence Directorate, 77th Brigade, NCSC/GCHQ, the National Cyber Force and the Social Cohesion Taskforce. Is that not enough? How do we know this new body won’t be weaponised to silence dissent and chill free speech? Will it reprimand the Government itself? FSU Director of Policy and Research @DavidRoseUK's new briefing argues that the Government has itself been spreading misinformation about misinformation — exaggerating the scale of the threat it poses. The Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy, flounced off X, citing the spread of misinformation as a threat to democracy. If government ministers genuinely care about tackling mis- and disinformation, they should stay, debate and challenge falsehoods with more information — not less. It is vital that the UK defends our democracy against hostile actors such as Russia. But safeguards are essential to prevent bodies established for that purpose from expanding their remit to domestic dissent and policing the social media posts of British citizens who criticise government policy. We should remember that more than 62,000 people have reportedly been arrested for “speech offences” in Britain over the past five years — including social media posts. Meanwhile, under its media green paper, Watch This Space, the Labour Government is already proposing measures intended to promote “trustworthy” news sources. The concern is that this could favour established outlets such as the BBC while disadvantaging more critical outlets such as GB News and independent journalism. The Government needs to explain exactly what powers this new Centre will have, who decides what constitutes an “untrue narrative”, and what safeguards will prevent it from becoming a tool for policing lawful dissent. 2026 Britain is turning more into 1984 by the day. We literally now have a Ministry of Truth.

Labour’s controversial Islamophobia definition — and the process by which it came to be — stinks more and more of a cover-up every day. It was bad enough that Angela Rayner appointed five individuals to the Working Group tasked with drafting the definition, all of whom had troubling links to Islamist organisations, including the Muslim Council of Britain and MEND. Now, thanks to a Freedom of Information request by Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Timothy, it has emerged that every submission to the Working Group’s consultation was deleted — apparently in breach of the Government’s own data policy. At every turn, Labour ministers have refused to answer straightforward questions from parliamentarians and key stakeholders such as the Free Speech Union. Who submitted evidence to the consultation? Did extremists have an opportunity to influence the drafting of the definition? Did ministers instruct officials to delete every response? It has also been revealed that the Government pressed the Equality and Human Rights Commission to accept the proposed definition, despite the EHRC’s objections. The EHRC and the Free Speech Union repeatedly warned that the definition was unnecessary and would have a chilling effect on free speech. Laws already exist to protect people from religious hatred and discrimination. If Labour genuinely cared about tackling actual instances of anti-Muslim hatred, it would focus on enforcing those laws. Instead, it is sacrificing free speech on the altar of electoral ambition. Writing in The Critic, Nick Timothy says: “This pernicious definition is being used exactly as we said it would — to conflate religion and race and silence discussion of Islam.” When Nick criticised a mass Muslim public prayer event in Trafalgar Square, he was branded Islamophobic, reported to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and even faced calls to resign from then Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer. As he writes: “Time and again, those of us who have raised concerns that this definition — which the Government is formally recommending all public and private organisations adopt — may restrict free speech have been ignored.” Ministers insist the definition will not chill free speech. Yet Bridget Phillipson used the dispatch box to call Nick racist, then refused to correct the record or apologise. Labour must come clean about who helped draft this new Islamic blasphemy law — and why it went ahead with it. Read more from @NJ_Timothy 👇

In what world did the Government think it acceptable to delete every response to the consultation that helped draft the anti-Muslim hostility definition — Britain’s new Islamic blasphemy law? It is clear there has been a cover-up in Angela Rayner’s Communities Department. Did ministers allow extremists to influence the definition while excluding the Free Speech Union and the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) from the process? This is a national disgrace. The public deserves to know the truth. The anti-Muslim hostility definition has already had a chilling effect on free speech. It has been weaponised by activists, police forces and even Labour MPs to silence legitimate criticism and debate about Islam.

🚨 The Government has revealed that it consulted the left-wing, censorious think tank the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) over the Online Safety Act. The CCDH was founded by Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer’s former Downing Street Chief of Staff. It claims that it wants to tackle “hate”, but in practice campaigns for greater restrictions on online speech. Its US Director, Imran Ahmed, is a staunch opponent of the Trump administration, and it has been reported that the US State Department is even considering deporting him. In response to a parliamentary question from Shadow Cabinet Office Minister Mike Wood, ministers revealed: “DCMS also engages with a range of civil society organisations in developing online harms policy, including where it relates to public safety. As part of this, the Centre for Countering Digital Hate has participated in official-level roundtables with the department in 2024 and 2026.” The CCDH has received money from taxpayer-funded charities, was revealed to have drawn up a plan to “Kill Musk’s Twitter”, and campaigns for greater government control of the internet, as well as the defunding of right-of-centre platforms. So why is the Government consulting an organisation with such an overtly censorious agenda on laws governing what millions of people can say and see online? Read more in @GuidoFawkes 👇