Labour’s Islamophobia crisis is missing from the commentary on Forde

It has been over two years since Martin Forde was approached by the Labour Party to lead an independent investigation into the contents and circumstances of a leaked report from 2019. For most of those two years, the scope, contents and even timeline of publication of this report has been an inescapable topic in the party.

In fact, the discussions surrounding this report have probably better highlighted the toxic culture that continues to be prevalent in the party better than any investigation ever could. Mercifully, this week we have finally seen the full publication of the report. And it does not make for easy reading, at least for Muslims.

Watching the discussion play out in the press and across social media, it is clear where most pundits have focused their time and efforts on: analysing the factional in-fighting the report highlights within the most senior Labour offices. That’s to be expected. We are all too often obsessed with the drama of Westminster while ignoring the larger pressing issues in our politics.

Yet even by British political standards, I have been astounded at the lack of ‘air time’ given to, what I believe to be, the most explosive and damning elements of the report: the scale of racism within our Labour Party.

Racism in our politics is nothing new for me. For almost the entirety of my journey within the Labour Party and in British politics more broadly, I have had to deal with Islamophobia. From comments at local Constituency Labour Party (CLP) meetings to abuse from members online; from institutional barriers placed in front of members like me in (s)election process to death threats being a part of normal life as a candidate. It is all too familiar a story for us.

In my recent book, chronicling my journey as the parliamentary candidate in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, I recount stories of being called a “terrorist” by Labour members in the local selection campaign and death threats being hand delivered to my home as a PPC candidate. I recall sending complaints about such behaviour and activity to the legal and governance unit (GLU) to be met with silence for over 13 months.

It is because of this day-to-day experience in the party that, as I began flicking through the pages of the published report, my eyes first went to the findings on racism and Islamophobia. What I would find shocked even me. The report is clear and unambiguous: there are “serious problems of discrimination in the operations of the party”.

From “underlying racism and sexism apparent in some of the content of the WhatsApp messages between the party’s most senior staff”, to members explicitly “spelling out their experiences of discrimination – racism, islamophobia, sexism – in constituency parties and in Party processes”.

It is there in black and white for all to see, Labour has a serious problem pertaining to Islamophobia and racism. It is no longer just the private stories of individual members or confined to whispers in the corridors of Westminster. It is apparent that the ‘racist, sexist and otherwise discriminatory behaviour’ has fed a ‘toxic culture’ that reaches the highest levels of the Labour Party.

But it is not just the mere existence of Islamophobia within our movement that is so offensive to members like me, it is the culture of denial. Islamophobia has for a long time been an accepted form of racism within British society. We have even seen Prime Ministers employ it to whip up anti-Muslim sentiment when politically expedient. It would be unreasonable to expect the Labour Party to be totally immune from a disease which has taken hold of our politics nationally.

No, that is not what is most offensive. What is most offensive is the “failure of party officials at regional and national level to take such problems [of Islamophobia] seriously”. It is a “culture of denialism across all factions in which many of the people involved in such behaviour failed to accept that they may have acted in a way that is bullying, threatening, discriminatory or which perpetuates discriminatory behaviour, simple because they are committed to progressive politics”.

We have seen this culture first hand in the last 24 hours. How many of our political leaders have spoken out against the Islamophobia highlighted in this report? How many have stood in solidarity with their Muslim constituents and members?

This culture of denial, the unwillingness to act and the blatant brushing of Islamophobia under the carpet has led to perhaps the most chilling reflection of the Forde report: that “the party was in effect operating a hierarchy of racism or discrimination with other forms of racism [ namely Islamophobia] being ignored”. This in reality saw the “manipulation of process along factional lines, marginalisation of those with protected characteristics, opacity of procedures and a perceived hierarchy of engagement with different protected characteristics” treated differently under the rules.

Forde’s report concludes as articulately as I ever could, that “for a party which seeks to be a standard bearer of progressive politics, equality, and workers’ rights, this is an untenable situation. The party must live by its values and lead by example”. Reading this report has been painful. So many members like me have spent much of our lives fighting with all our will for the Labour Party. But it is impossible to read this report and reach any conclusion other than there being institutional Islamophobia at all levels of the party.

I still believe with all my heart in the Labour Party. I believe because in my travels up and down the country, to CLPs from Middlesbrough to Plymouth, I see the good that exists in our party. The ordinary members who fight for hope, for equality, for justice. But it is about damn time the establishment of the party caught up to them. We are running out of second chances. The Islamophobia crisis in the Labour Party must be met with the intensity it deserves. This is an emergency.