Silencing debate about Islam: one of the big threats to free speech in the UK in 2026
What Labour's new definition is really all about
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Last year, in 2025, I repeatedly warned about how the ruling class in the UK is moving to shut down public debate about Islam.
This year, in 2026, it will become reality.
Want to know why?
Just look at what Keir Starmer’s authoritarian progressive Labour government is proposing, building on their suggested definition of ‘Islamophobia’ last year.
Now, under the slightly different banner of tackling “anti-Muslim hostility”, the Labour government is preparing to impose a new, sweeping definition on public institutions, regulators, universities, local authorities and potentially the police.
On the surface, this is presented as a benign effort to protect one minority group from prejudice. In reality, it risks entrenching one of the most serious assaults on free speech and free expression Britain has ever seen.
At the heart of the problem is Labour’s decision to revive and rebrand the deeply controversial concept of “Islamophobia” as “anti-Muslim hostility”.
This is not a cosmetic change.
It is an attempt to smuggle a highly politicised and ill-defined concept into law, policy and regulation while neutralising any public resistance to it.
The proposed definition does not merely target hatred or discrimination against Muslims as people — something that is already illegal under existing laws (stirring up racial hatred is already illegal).
Instead, it blurs the line between people and ideas.
It risks treating criticism of Islam — a religion, belief system and political force — as a form of hostility toward Muslims themselves, as a form of ‘racism’.
This is a fundamental category error, and a very dangerous one that could soon have profound consequences, especially as Islam spreads rapidly in the years ahead.
In a liberal democracy, religions are not above scrutiny. They never have been.
Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, secularism, liberalism, and the new political religion of woke-ism— all are routinely criticised, debated, mocked and challenged.
Islam cannot be exempted from this basic principle without abandoning free expression altogether. Yet that is precisely the direction of travel in the UK.
Under Labour’s approach, public bodies will now inevitably be pressured to interpret discussion of Islam — its doctrines, practices, historical record, political influence or relationship with liberal values — through the lens of “anti-Muslim hostility”.
And how does Labour define ‘anti-Muslim hostility’?
As: “the prejudicial stereotyping and racialisation of Muslims, as part of a collective group with set characteristics, to stir up hatred against them, irrespective of their actual opinions, beliefs, or actions as individuals”.
Note those two words: ‘racialisation’ and ‘stereotyping’.
As Conservative MP Nick Timothy points out, Labour is trying to make something that is not about race —religious beliefs—explicitly about race.
Following Islam is about choosing to follow a particular set of ideas and in a free society we must all be free to scrutinise, debate and challenge ideas.
But Labour’s sloppy language, which seeks to treat any such criticism as tantamount to racism, will inevitably create a powerful chilling effect in British society.
It will encourage Muslims —who are not a racial group— to shout “racist!” at every turn, thereby warning people off debating or criticising their religion —much like people were warned off talking about the grooming gangs for decades because they too feared being called ‘racist’ by Muslims or their allies in the Labour Party.
Officials, teachers, academics and journalists will be incentivised not to ask difficult questions, not to publish uncomfortable facts, and not to host controversial debates.
We have already seen where this leads.
Universities cancel speakers. Police investigate lawful speech. Employers discipline staff for opinions that are expressed outside work. And the public square is gradually narrowed from one year to the next.
The new definition will pour fuel on this fire, not extinguish it.
And look at that other word — “stereotyping”.
Who, exactly, will determine what is and what is not stereotyping Muslims?
If I want to write a critical piece about, say, Muslim entryism in politics through organisations like Muslim Brotherhood will I be accused of ‘stereotyping’?
What if I want to write about how grooming gang members saw Islam as legitimising their horrific actions against non-Muslims? Will that be considered stereotyping, too?
Or what if I wanted to suggest that we have a specific problem with Islam given that it inspired the vast majority of domestic terrorists in the UK over the last thirty years?
Who draws the line here?
The same people who backed the original definition of ‘Islamophobia’, in 2018, which openly suggested that even debating things like the rape gangs or the demographic spread of Islam could all be considered ‘Islamophobic’?
Supporters of the new definition will naturally insist that safeguards will protect legitimate debate. Yet they …
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