The Adam Smith Institute’s Response to the UK Government’s Islamophobia Working Group
Last week, I, on behalf of the Adam Smith Institute, filed our response to the Government’s call for evidence issued by the Working Group on Anti-Muslim Hatred/Islamophobia Definition (hereinafter the “Working Group”).
According to its own governance documentation, the Working Group exists to provide the Government with “appropriate and sensitive language to describe, understand and define unacceptable treatment, prejudice, discrimination and hate targeting Muslims or anyone who is perceived to be Muslim.” This includes advising whether the government should adopt “a non-statutory definition of unacceptable treatment of Muslims and anyone perceived to be Muslim, including what a proposed definition should be.”
Critics, such as the National Secular Society, warned that introducing a formal definition of “Islamophobia” risks reintroducing the crime of blasphemy, formally abolished in 2008. A Free Speech Union briefing from 2024 described the effort as reintroducing “blasphemy via the backdoor.” In establishing this mandate, the Working Group was therefore very careful to reassure the British public that “any proposed definition must be compatible with the unchanging right of British citizens to exercise freedom of speech and expression – which includes the right to criticise, express dislike of, or insult religions and/or the beliefs and practices of adherents.”
We at the Adam Smith Institute believe that, as a practical matter, engaging in serious criticism of Islam as a religion or ideology is already illegal in the UK, and has been for nearly three decades.
There is, of course, no statute that explicitly criminalises criticism of Islam. But the cumulative effect of laws governing offensive or controversial speech, in particular the Public Order Act 1986, makes it clear to us that the blasphemy train has very much left the station once again. Consider, if you will, the 2002 conviction of Mark Anthony Norwood for displaying a sign reading “ISLAM OUT OF BRITAIN” from the comfort of his own home, or the prosecution and conviction of Hamit Coskun in May of this year for burning a Koran on the steps of the Turkish Embassy.
If free speech doesn’t include the right to nonviolently express controversial thought – and in the UK, as decades of precedents show, it doesn’t – we don’t agree that the UK has a free speech right worthy of the name.
We further believe that Britain is already among the most heavily censored countries in the Western world. We believe also, as set out in our 2020 position paper and draft law on this topic, that all statutes granting the state power to police non-violent expression should be abolished and permanently prohibited from resurrection by a new constitutional framework.
While we support laws aimed at curbing the commission of violent bias-motivated crimes, we categorically oppose laws or other state-supported initiatives that punish or stigmatize non-violent but offensive political speech.
Thus, we conclude that the only purpose of adopting a formal definition of “Islamophobia” would be to focus enforcement of existing overbroad censorship laws in a way that favours one religion above the others.
The Adam Smith Institute, as a non-partisan policy think tank focused on economic and individual liberty, takes no institutional position on the role of Islam in British society. But, as libertarians, we oppose all state censorship and do not concede that any of it is legitimate. For five years running, our position has been clear: criminalising offensive or controversial speech is an unacceptable infringement on individual liberty, and it cannot be tolerated by a free people.
If, as seems likely, the Labour Party’s existing policy on Islamophobia – which labelled as “Islamophobic” such acts as objecting to mosque construction on anything other than secular humanist grounds, expressing views that Islamic values conflict with democracy, or criticising the faith in harsh terms – is informing the Working Group’s approach, then the probable outcome of this process will be to increase levels of political censorship in British life. In our opinion, the possibility of that outcome must be opposed.
We submitted our consultation response on Friday. Notably, the Government initially refused to accept responses from any civil society groups opposed to the adoption of a formal Islamophobia definition. It was only under legal pressure from our friends and colleagues at the Free Speech Union that the Government relented and allowed broader participation.
We were unsurprised to find, when we went to provide our response, that the consultation format itself appeared designed to minimise meaningful feedback. Answers were capped at 600 characters – characters, not words – or, approximately, 2.5 tweets.
For that reason, we are publishing our full responses, and additional reasoning to provide color to our expurgated short-form responses which omitted necessary nuance, in full here.
Question 1: Which term should be used to describe discrimination or violence directed at Muslims?
We proposed the term “Bias Intimidation.”
We responded to the Working Group:
“Scientifically, the God of Abraham is a myth. Many of us, this writer included, choose to believe in that myth. People who do not should have a right to disbelieve, and oppose those beliefs, freely and without fear that doing so is officially disfavored by the state.
“No religion or ideology should be singled out for special protection from criticism. Future policymaking should ensure only content-neutral, conduct-based terminology is employed when crafting state policy on bias intimidation and enforcement of the UK’s numerous laws which criminalize the expression of controversial ideas.”
Question 2: Should the UK Government adopt a definition of “Anti-Muslim Hatred/Islamophobia”?
We answered No.
We responded to the Government:
“We do not understand what purpose such a definition would serve except to stigmatize certain political viewpoints.
“The UK has one of the most expansive speech crime regimes in the Western world, public opposition to which is rising rapidly. Anti-Islam expression is already a crime under e.g. the Public Order Act 1986 (whether it should be the case is another question entirely – see the case of Hamit Coskun).
“There is growing public perception that enforcement of speech crimes in the UK is ‘two tier.’ Definitions implying special protection for certain groups will worsen that perception.”
Explaining the Adam Smith Institute’s Responses to Questions 1 and 2:
Bias intimidation is a concept we borrowed from another common-law jurisdiction, namely the People’s Republic of New Jersey (N.J. Stat. Ann. 2C:16-1), which criminalises the commission, attempt, conspiracy, or threat of a criminal act motivated by a protected characteristic, including both race and religion. The law increases the penalty of the underlying offense by one degree.
This model offers three distinct advantages over British definitions which we assume are informing the Working Group’s approach:
Objectivity: it enumerates fixed, well-understood, well-established protected categories and does not attempt to conflate these categories.
Neutrality: it protects all members of each category equally, with no preferences.
Respects free speech: it applies only when an underlying criminal act occurs, not to speech alone.
Because similar provisions already exist in British law (e.g., the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and the Criminal Justice Act 2003), adopting the “bias intimidation” descriptor offers a precise, content-neutral basis for describing the prosecution of hate-motivated actions, without further criminalising beliefs or speech or communicating to subsidiary government bodies that particular groups should be provided with greater protection or deprioritized on the basis of the beliefs they hold.
This approach will uphold the principle of equal protection under the law. It also is a way for the government to reaffirm its commitment to presiding over a pluralistic society – a core tenet of which must be that all citizens, regardless of their background or protected characteristics, are entitled to the same legal protections regardless of their beliefs, without fear or favor.
Anything less risks undermining the rule of law in service of ideological preference.
Question 3: Is “Islamophobia” a form of racism?
We answered No.
We responded to the Government:
“Islam is a belief system which encompasses a wide range of theological ideas that, in turn, inspire a particular set of political ideas. Many Britons find these ideas controversial, particularly as they relate to gender issues.
“Religious belief is not a national origin or ethnic designation and is not an immutable characteristic of the person holding those beliefs. Ideas are, and should be, mutable and contestable; DNA is not.
“Government policy which respects freedom of speech and belief will distinguish between political speech pertaining to religious ideas and political speech pertaining to immutable characteristics.”
Islam is a religion, not an ethnicity. People who commit hate crimes on the basis of a person’s skin color, but who say that they “don’t like Muslims” are in fact committing a crime based on the person’s perceived nationality or ethnic origin, not the religious belief. This does not mean that the law should engage in the same terminological error as the offender, even where there is a high degree of correlation between the holders of particular beliefs and national origin.
There are, of course, very rare cases where there is direct overlap, such as with Judaism or Zoroastrianism. We do not think an evangelical religion of 2 billion adherents, with substantial populations everywhere on Earth, qualifies for that treatment.
The law can, and should, distinguish, in the case of a hate crime, whether the accused committed the crime because of where the victim is from, or because of what the victim believes.
Conflating a religious identification with an ethnic one risks creating enormous confusion among government agencies about how to address bias-related crime, and serious risks to freedom of speech as they confuse political speech with bias intimidation.
The fact that Islam is a religion is not a matter of offence or taste. It is a fact. Ethnicity and race are immutable characteristics; religions are mutable systems of belief that cannot be empirically verified. Religious identity is adopted by choice, influenced by ideas, and its defining feature is belief in a creed. Creeds are ideas, and in a free society, ideas must be contestable.
Conclusions
The Government’s approach to this consultation raises serious concerns about freedom of expression and equal protection.
The highly compressed response format, limited scope, leading questions, and exclusion of dissenting views – the last of which was only overcome by the threat of litigation – suggest the outcome was designed to ratify a foregone conclusion, not to solicit the views of the public. The British public deserves better. A multiethnic democracy demands it.
The Adam Smith Institute remains committed to defending the natural rights of all people.
We renew our call today for the British government to enact a UK Free Speech Act, which would, for the first time, ensure that the British people’s most basic freedom is restored and respected.
Preston Byrne is the Adam Smith Institute’s Legal Fellow, and Partner at Byrne & Storm P.C.