{"id":167,"date":"2024-03-07T12:44:33","date_gmt":"2024-03-07T12:44:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/criminology\/?p=167"},"modified":"2025-02-26T13:38:38","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T13:38:38","slug":"lee-andersons-islamophobia-101-how-the-conservatives-dodge-responsibility-for-the-prejudice-that-is-rife-in-their-ranks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/criminology\/2024\/03\/07\/lee-andersons-islamophobia-101-how-the-conservatives-dodge-responsibility-for-the-prejudice-that-is-rife-in-their-ranks\/","title":{"rendered":"Lee Anderson\u2019s Islamophobia 101: how the Conservatives dodge responsibility for the prejudice that is rife in their\u00a0ranks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Chris Allen – Associate Professor<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article was first published at The Conversation. To read, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Despite the furore, the recent attack on London mayor Sadiq Khan by the now-suspended Conservative MP Lee Anderson should come as no surprise. In much the same way, neither should we be surprised at prime minister Rishi Sunak\u2019s failure to call out what Anderson said as being anything other than blatant Islamophobia. When it comes to the Conservative party, we have been here before. For them, this is Islamophobia 101.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

lll<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The recent controversy began when Anderson \u2013 who was until very recently the party\u2019s deputy chairman \u2013\u00a0told GB News<\/a>\u00a0that Sadiq Khan had \u201cgiven our capital city away to his mates\u201d. As he went on, \u201cI don\u2019t actually believe that the Islamists have got control of our country, but what I do believe is they\u2019ve got control of Khan, and they\u2019ve got control of London\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

lll<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then, Anderson has\u00a0doubled down<\/a>, adding: \u201cwhen you think you are right, you should never apologise because to do so would be a sign of weakness\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ppp<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anderson has lost the whip, but beyond that the message coming out of the Conservative party has been tempered. Sunak has\u00a0failed to even acknowledge<\/a>\u00a0Anderson\u2019s comments as Islamophobic, let alone condemn them as such,\u00a0saying instead:<\/a>\u00a0\u201cI think the most important thing is that the words were wrong, they were ill-judged, they were unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Conservatives\u2019 problem with Islamophobia<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In recent years, the Conservative party has struggled to disentangle itself from various allegations that it is Islamophobic. In 2018, the Muslim Council of Britain presented the party with\u00a0a dossier detailing near-weekly incidents<\/a>\u00a0involving various party members. For those such as the former party chair Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the dossier was merely the tip of the iceberg. Noting how experiences of hate and discrimination are notoriously under-reported\u00a0she claimed at the time<\/a>\u00a0that Islamophobia is \u201cwidespread [in the party]\u2026from the grassroots, all the way up to the top\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the same year, former prime minister Boris Johnson referred to Muslim women who choose to wear the full-face veil as \u201cletterboxes\u201d and \u201cbank robbers\u201d\u00a0in an article for the Telegraph<\/a>. He dismissed the comments as little more than a gaffe but the allegations prompted the then home secretary Sajid Javid to ask his rivals during a BBC Conservative leadership debate\u00a0to commit to an external investigation into Islamophobia<\/a>, whoever the next leader might be. All, including Johnson, agreed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once Johnson had secured the party leadership however, the investigation was\u00a0shifted away from Islamophobia<\/a>\u00a0onto discrimination more widely. Doing so enabled the party to distance itself from the very reason why such an investigation was deemed necessary in the first place: claims of widespread Islamophobia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quibbling over definitions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Another way the Conservatives \u2013 and indeed others \u2013 have chosen to deny allegations of being Islamophobic is to claim that they do not have a definition for Islamophobia and therefore cannot assess whether comments such as Anderson\u2019s are Islamophobic. Such a premise is of course a farcical, straw man argument.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like all other discriminatory phenomena \u2013 from racism to homophobia \u2013 plenty of definitions have been put forward that could be adopted by the Conservatives. They could simply look to the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims, which in 2018 made history by putting forward the first working definition of Islamophobia in the UK. In its report\u00a0Islamophobia Defined<\/a>, it posited that \u201cIslamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite this definition being adopted by Labour, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and various local governments across the country, the Conservative party announced it was not intending to adopt the definition on the basis that\u00a0further consideration was necessary<\/a>. Continuing to deny the existence of an appropriate definition is, at this point, a convenient way to avoid being accused of being Islamophobic. As I put it in my 2020 book\u00a0Reconfiguring Islamophobia<\/a>, all the debate around definitions achieves is to afford detractors permission to do nothing about the problem itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attacks on Sadiq Khan<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Opposition parties were\u00a0immediately critical<\/a>\u00a0of Anderson\u2019s comments. But while the Labour party Chair Anneliese Dodds described them as \u201cunambiguously racist and Islamophobic\u201d and the Liberal Democrat London mayoral candidate Rob Blackie castigated the MP for \u201cspreading dangerous conspiracy theories\u201d, it is interesting that no one has highlighted how attacking Khan specifically is becoming an alarmingly common political tactic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was nowhere more evident than during Zac Goldsmith\u2019s 2016 London mayoral campaign. Branded \u201cdisgusting\u201d at the time, Goldsmith published a piece in the Mail on Sunday with the headline: \u201cAre we really going to hand the world\u2019s greatest city to a Labour Party that thinks terrorists are its friends?\u201d. Goldsmith went on to paint rival Khan as a security risk, claiming he had past links with extremists and that he supported Islamic State. Sound familiar?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So too does the Conservative party have a history of laying claim to Islamist extremists infiltrating other parts of British society. Michael Gove, during his time as education secretary, launched an investigation into claims \u201cMuslim hardliners\u201d were taking over state schools in Birmingham, despite the letter that made the allegations being immediately dismissed as a hoax by the police. In 2015, Theresa May, while home secretary, took it even further, launching\u00a0a campaign against \u201centryist\u201d infiltration<\/a>\u00a0across vast swathes of the public and third sectors by Islamist extremists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While there should be no hierarchy when it comes to hate or discrimination, the reality is that when it comes to Islamophobia, the scrutiny directed at other forms of prejudice is undeniably absent. What can be said and alleged about Muslims in political (and public) spaces cannot be said about other religious groups and communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It should be shocking that the prime minister cannot even acknowledge Anderson\u2019s comments as Islamophobic \u2013 but it isn\u2019t. It\u2019s just another example of the sheer disregard and utter contempt that is shown by political leaders towards this problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

The original Conversation article can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chris Allen – Associate Professor This article was first published at The Conversation. To read, click here. Despite the furore, the recent attack on London mayor Sadiq Khan by the now-suspended Conservative MP Lee Anderson should come as no surprise. In much the same way, neither should we be surprised at prime minister Rishi Sunak\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8,184,182,18,181,180],"class_list":["post-167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-chris-allen","tag-communities","tag-conservative-party","tag-criminology","tag-islamophobia","tag-lee-anderson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":169,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions\/169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}