The UK Labour government’s new definition of “anti-Muslim hostility” – rebranded from “Islamophobia” – is being shaped by a working group where every single member has links to Islamist organisations.
The details are exposed in the Free Speech Union’s latest investigative briefing which highlights ties between the group members and the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and Muslim Engagement and Development (MEND), groups that governments since 2009 have refused to engage with due to their extreme views.
One member, Baroness Gohir, tweeted in support of Hamas in 2014. Another stood for the far-left, Islamist-supporting Respect Party.
The Free Speech Union’s latest investigative briefing reveals that ALL FIVE members of the Government’s working group tasked with defining “Islamophobia” — now rebranded as “anti-Muslim hostility” — have troubling links to Islamist organisations.
— The Free Speech Union (@SpeechUnion) April 8, 2026
These include the Muslim Council… https://t.co/MZsgc4amKF
As the Free Speech Union states: “In a free society, no religion should enjoy greater protection than others — nor be shielded from legitimate criticism and challenge.”
The FSU adds: “This group was stacked with members already sympathetic to such a definition.” And with the government yet to appoint a new Islamophobia tsar, “there is deep cause for concern.”
Conservative MP Katie Lam put it bluntly in her video response: “The Government’s new ‘anti-Muslim hostility’ definition will make it harder to talk about Islamist extremism, FGM, and the grooming gangs. They’d rather restrict our right to criticise than deal with these problems head-on. It’s putting us all in danger.”
Parliament abolished blasphemy laws in 2008. Yet as the FSU warns: “This Government risks reviving them for Islam alone, via the back door.”
The wider context is the government’s “Protecting What Matters” report from March 2026, which rolled out the non-statutory definition alongside plans for a special representative on Muslim hostility. Officials insist it protects free speech – but the panel’s composition tells a different story.
Read the full Free Speech Union briefing here.
This comes just weeks after we reported on the government’s leaked social cohesion strategy that branded the Union Flag a “tool of hate” and told schools children’s drawings could be blasphemous under Islamic law.
It builds directly on the Orwellian push we exposed where UK schools are urged to snitch on “anti-Muslim hostility.”
The pattern is clear: criticism of Islam is being reframed as hostility, while real problems like grooming gangs, FGM and Islamist extremism are sidelined.
Challenging Islamist extremism or mass migration’s consequences is now being treated as the real threat. Legitimate debate on integration failures, cultural clashes, or grooming scandals gets reclassified as “hostility” while the actual problems fester.
Britain’s free speech tradition is under sustained assault – not from the public, but from a government more interested in shielding one ideology than defending open society.
The Free Speech Union is right to sound the alarm. Without pushback, this backdoor blasphemy regime will silence the very conversations the country desperately needs.
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