British Blasphemy? UK Govt Moves Toward New Definition Of “Islamophobia” For Speech Regulation

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Recently, after the speech of Vice President J.D. Vance in Munich, various European leaders went public to express their shock and disbelief that they would be accused of rolling back on free speech. For many of us, it was a laughable display of denial, particularly from UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. 

In a country that has eviscerated free speech, Starmer told Bret Baier that the UK “guards” free speech and “we don’t believe in censoring speech.” 

Now, the government is continuing this month with its effort to regulate and criminalize speech.

The effort to crack down on “Islamophobia” could create a type of blasphemy standard if it encompasses criticism of the faith or its practices.

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has announced that the government will be further cracking down on hate speech with a new working group tasked with defining ‘Islamophobia’. 

The free speech community is raising the alarm that the effort is likely to further broaden the government controls over speech.

It was announced last week that Rayner’s working group would be chaired by former Conservative attorney general Dominic Grieve KC, who has himself admitted that defining Islamophobia while safeguarding free speech is ‘extremely difficult.’ 

Notably, Grieve wrote the foreword to the 2018 All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) report on Islamophobia, which advanced a definition that many critics argue is far too broad.

The APPG included criticism of Islamic beliefs and practices as examples of Islamophobia. 

It has been condemned for treating criticism of the faith as a type of hate speech.

For years, I have been writing about the decline of free speech in the United Kingdom and the steady stream of arrests, including in my book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.

A man was convicted for sending a tweet while drunk referring to dead soldiers. Another was arrested for an anti-police t-shirt. Another was arrested for calling the Irish boyfriend of his ex-girlfriend a “leprechaun.” Yet another was arrested for singing “Kung Fu Fighting.” A teenager was arrested for protesting outside of a Scientology center with a sign calling the religion a “cult.”Last year, Nicholas Brock, 52, was convicted of a thought crime in Maidenhead, Berkshire. The neo-Nazi was given a four-year sentence for what the court called his “toxic ideology” based on the contents of the home he shared with his mother in Maidenhead, Berkshire. Judge Peter Lodder QC dismissed free speech or free thought concerns with a truly Orwellian statement: “I do not sentence you for your political views, but the extremity of those views informs the assessment of dangerousness.”

Lodder lambasted Brock for holding Nazi and other hateful values:

“[i]t is clear that you are a right-wing extremist, your enthusiasm for this repulsive and toxic ideology is demonstrated by the graphic and racist iconography which you have studied and appeared to share with others…”

The fear is that an expanded hate speech law that includes criticism of Islamophobia will operate like a British blasphemy law. 

In 2008, the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel were abolished in England. 

This new effort could constructively restore such prosecutions as they relate to Islam.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.