‘Punishing people’ | Free speech under THREAT over Labour's anti-Muslim hostility definition

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:01]Welcome back to Free Speech Nation. A hate crime adviser was sacked after she complained officers were avoiding Islamist extremism like an elephant in the room during a meeting about the Manchester synagogue attack. The woman accused West Yorkshire Police of trying to appease Muslims rather than focusing on the Jewish community. She was told she was being removed as chair of the scrutiny panel due to divisive and inflammatory comments which had prompting complaints from Muslim officers. She suggested the letter had been written for Muslim men who complained to get him to shut me up and he did as they asked. This came as the same week uh Reform UK has been referred to the equalities watchdog for alleged Islamophobia by a group of labor MPs. So to discuss all this and more, I'm joined now by the director of the free speech union, Lord Toby Young. Welcome to the show. Thank you.

[00:00:54]>> Both these stories are concerning. Let's start with what happened in West Yorkshire Police. Um so essentially two Jews got murdered and they convened they convened an emergency panel inviting as one of the people this this chair of this uh committee and it's she what she says is um they just spent the whole time focusing on what this meant for the Muslim community and threat to mosques and at some point she kind of put her hand up on Zoom and said I don't think we're actually mentioning here that this was carried out by uh a Muslim and that this is where the threat where's the why why are we not talking about the threat to the Jewish community.

[00:01:35]>> Yeah, that's um that's broadly right. um she was the chair I think of the Bradford um hate crime panel. Um and she was asked along to this meeting in the immediate aftermath of the attack on the synagogue in Manchester. and um she was surprised that most of the people at this meeting who were Muslim community leaders um were calling for better protection of mosques in Manchester, not of synagogues, which she thought was a slightly well, it was an unexpected reaction to an attack on a synagogue in which two people died. Um and um at the same they were worried about retaliatory attacks on mosques whilst at the same time >> cuz Jews are famous for doing that. You know >> at the same time disputing that um the attack had been carried out by an Islamist. They weren't able to contest that the following day when it emerged the attack was carried out by someone whose first name was Jihadi. Um but um she was slightly takenback by this reaction and she said that there was actually a police officer quite a senior police officer from West Yorkshire Police at the meeting who said there was no evidence that there was any greater threat to mosques in the aftermath of this attack. So they didn't t they wouldn't typically increase the amount of CCTV footage outside these mosques, ramp up security outside these mosques when there was no evidence that they were under any kind of threat in the aftermath of this attack on the synagogue. Uh but then the following day these perfectly sensible remarks had been ignored and it and this panel of people when they met the following day were told yes we will be increasing security outside mosque. She was rather takenback by that. Um, she also said, as you say, that they were ignoring the elephant in the room, namely that the attack was carried out by an Islamist and u anti-semitism in the Muslim community in Manchester was an issue that they were ignoring and should be focusing on. Um, in addition, she a complaint was subsequently raised seemingly by Muslim community leaders, Muslim officers, as you said, in West Yorkshire Police, not only that her remarks at this meeting had been Islamophobic, um, but uh, in addition, she had questioned whether someone who called up uh, West Yorkshire Police and rented on the phone about the fact that Muhammad took a bride when she was six and consummated the marriage when she was nine.

[00:04:07]was ranting and raving about this on the phone to a call handler. Um and um he was initially investigated under suspicion of having committed a hate crime. She questioned whether raising that particular point, even in a kind of ranty way on the phone, was in fact a hate crime. And after she'd raised this and West Yorkshire Police had taken legal advice, it was downgraded to a non-crine hate incident. But subsequently that was raised as well as evidence of her Islamophobia and she was removed as the chair of this Bradford uh hate crime panel. Um and she was quite upset when the um officer who wrote to her saying she'd been removed, he made this rather kind of um veiled threat in which he said that many of the complainants had been asking for her details of where she lived which at this point he wasn't going to share with them. The implication being, at least this is how she understood it, that if she kicked up any sort of fuss about being kicked off this panel, he would share the details. He would effectively dox her to these people who were demanding she be removed from the panel.

[00:05:13]Pretty threatening, pretty sinister, pretty unpleasant. And it seems to point to the um Islamic capture of West Yorkshire Police, similar to what appears to be the capture by West Midland's police by Muslim community leaders. Uh, and that that that's part of the explanation for why the West Midlands Police decided to ban Makabe Tel Aviv fans coming to the Makabe Tel Aviv Aston Villa game. Yeah. Using the internet without a VPN, a virtual private network, is a bit like taking to the road without car insurance. All it takes is one unlucky moment to cost you a lot of cash. This video's sponsor is Private Internet Access. They are the VPN to help keep you safe. Click the link in the description below to find out why over 30 million people have downloaded PIA to protect themselves online. A virtual private network is an app that hides your IP address and helps keep your data private. When you're browsing the internet at home, you give up a large amount of data to businesses, to shops, and indeed to social media giants, too. Hackers have the ability to steal your personal data with ease, including sensitive information such as passwords, keystrokes, and even your personal photos. Private Internet Access helps protect your personal data by encrypting your internet connection to keep your data out of the hands of cyber criminals. And it's not just hackers either to be concerned about.

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[00:07:31]>> Yeah. I mean, I think maybe one of the disturbing most disturbing elements of this was in this letter where they, you know, dismissed her. They said that her comments did not demonstrate impartiality.

[00:07:43]The idea being that there's sort of two sides to this there. It's not about being impartial. It's just about recognizing the reality. The reality was in this particular incident um and frankly as most of the violence that we've seen towards Jews over the last period of time has been from uh Muslims from parts of the the Muslim community and also on this other instant that in terms of its impart the impartiality she now I I don't agree that you should be calling up and ranting about Muhammad necessarily but the point is we don't have blasphemy laws in this country her impartiality or lack of impartiality is to protect our rights in this country to be able to criticize any religious figure from any religion. So it's not about impartiality in either of those instance but that's what they're using as an excuse to fire this. I mean if if if you point out that Jews in this country are facing an unprecedented wave of aggressive anti-semitism which sometimes spills over into violent murderous attacks. If you point it out to a Muslim um particularly a prominent public figure um uh the typical response will be what about what about hate crime? What about the Muslims who are victims of hate crimes? Why are you just focusing on this group? And they'll often claim that more Muslims in the last year have been victims of hate crimes than Jews, ignoring the fact that the number of Jews in this country is um a fraction of the number of Muslims. And if you look at the number of uh victims of hate crimes in the Jewish community on a per capita basis, they vastly vastly outnumber the number of victims Muslim victims of hate crimes on a per capita basis. So it is a bit of disingenuous watery. I think um we're worried at the Free Speech Union that as the definition of anti-Muslim hostility is rolled out across public bodies. It's already been taken up by South Wales Police, West Yorkshire Police are saying they're considering taking it up. It's been taken up by at least one regulator that we know of the Nursing and Midwifery Council. Now, when this definition was unveiled by Steve Reid, the community's secretary, uh he was uh very keen to stress that it had these free speech safeguards built in. Uh it wouldn't include anti-Muslim hostility, would not include criticizing the religion of Islam, the history of Islam.

[00:10:12]It wouldn't include criticizing um Islamic religious practices. Um uh but as it's rolled out particularly to police forces those protections are being cast aside these bodies are goldplating the definition and the concern is that people who say anything critical of Islam such as criticizing the public ifar in Trafalga Square of a few months ago uh will immediately uh be recorded as being guilty of anti-Muslim hostility. It'll initially be recorded as a non-rime hate incident which are still being recorded while the successor regime they're going to be replaced in due course by antisocial behavior incidents but that hasn't happened yet but in due course they will in turn be recorded as antisocial behavior incidents we think and there's a risk of course that they may be disclosed on enhanced DVS checks if you apply for a job as a teacher or a carer and you've got uh this week MPs I think it was 27 MPs put forward and and recommend and sort um said that uh that that the Reform Party should be um reported to the EHRC for Islamophobia, which as isn't even the term that the government use anymore. Uh but again, there's this danger and this is based on what you were saying about um Trafalga Square.

[00:11:32]So, anybody who criticizes the this the religious doctrine here then is fair game. And this is exactly what people said that they didn't want to happen with.

[00:11:42]>> Yeah. I mean, I I think it means that um we can't take the government's asurances that the definition of anti-Muslim hostility won't inhibit free speech. It won't stop people, make them think twice before criticizing any aspect of Islam or Islamic religious practices. Now, in the case of these MPs who've written to the EHRC, it's a political stunt. I doubt I mean you can't be sure but I doubt the EHRC will in fact investigate reform um but um if a nurse who criticized the ifar in Trafalga Square if someone complains about her to the nursing and midriffy council she she might very well find herself out of a job. So even though as big a regulator, as public a regulator as the EHRC may be a little bit more circumspect when coming under political pressure to punish people for so-called Islamophobia, other regulators, not so high on the radar as the HRC could well, and that's something the Free Speech Union is very concerned about. And we if anyone watching this uh thinks that they may have been reported to a regulator if they work for the NHS to an NHS trust for anti-Muslim hostility, do get in touch with the Free Speech Union because we want to make sure we take on these cases and draw a line in the sand as soon as possible to make sure people aren't punished, people don't lose their jobs merely for criticizing the religion of Islam. We don't have a blasphemy law in this country. We don't want one brought in by the back door.

[00:13:10]>> Absolutely. Well, big round of applause please for Lords K.

[00:13:14]A spokesman for the West Yorkshire Police said following the devastating attack in Manchester on the 2nd of October 2025, officers in Bradford called a meeting with partners to discuss concerns and reaffirm their commitment to comm to keep the Jewish community and wider community safe.

[00:13:26]Following the meeting, complaints were received about divisive inflammatory comments made by an attendee who held an impartial role as a chair of an independent advisory group. Legal advice supported our view that the attendees comments did not demonstrate impartiality and had breached the terms of reference and code of conduct. As such, she was removed from the role.

[00:13:43]West Rockshire Police is committed to keeping all of our communities safe. We have well established links with the local Jewish communities and work closely with partners including the community security trust to ensure there is coordinated protection, support and reassurance.