Tory Islamophobia: The UK equality watchdog is letting the party off the hook
JVL Introduction
The Muslim Council of Britain and other Muslim organisations have been calling for an inquiry into Islamophobia for ages.
Now here’s the surprise.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission finally acted this week – deciding to do nothing.
It’s happy to allow the Tory Party to investigate itself, even though, as Peter Oborne shows, this proposed investigation is hopelessly procedural, ignoring “the poisonous culture of structural Islamophobia that has become firmly established inside the Tory party”.
“I’m starting to wonder,” muses Oborne, “whether the EHRC plays straight with Muslims. And I am also starting to wonder whether it offers special treatment to the Conservative Party.”
This article was originally published by Middle East Eye on Fri 15 May 2020. Read the original here.
Tory Islamophobia: The UK equality watchdog is letting the party off the hook
The Equality and Human Rights Commission announced this week that it would not launch an investigation into allegations of anti-Muslim bigotry within the Conservative Party ‘at this stage’
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A damning indictment on the EHRC. Some forms of racism are treated more seriously than others, or worse, denied.
EHRC
Zero credibility
This from a conservative: thank the lord that there is some sort of fair-mindedness there.
What do we conclude about the EHRC?
I think this may be a blessing in disguise: we need a truly independent body to be set up to investigate Tory racism, and I’d nominate this guy to chair it.
We need a new approach to inquiry.
Lets stop waiting for the ‘officials’ to do what they call “inquiry” and do it ourselves: all evidence to be public, all commentary to be shared, all communities to be consulted and exposed to question …
This is truly worrying it makes you wonder if the system is rigged? Scrutiny needs to continue to expose and highlight where things just don’t seem right.we must always strive for the truth to be exposed without this scrutiny where would we be?
The Chief Executive of the EHRC founded a school that has “advocacy of Israel” as part of the compulsory curriculum and advocacy of Israel is what this episode is really about.
Two days ago I wrote this letter to my MP;
Dear Harriet Harman,
I understand that in 2016 you, as Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, responded to a report in the Guardian that the then Tory Minister for Women and Equalities, Nicky Morgan, was under fire for appointing David Isaac, a wealthy city lawyer whose firm works for the government, as Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). You said that this was a serious conflict of interest because “the EHRC often took cases against the government” and Isaac’s firm often represented the government. Unfortunately, your concerns were ignored and Isaac was appointed chair.
At the end of 2016, you then wrote directly to David Isaac, the new chair, raising concerns over the fact G4S had been awarded the contract for the Equality Advisory Support Service (EASS) and that they had taken over the management of the EASS Helpline. You were also aware that the EHRC had a representative on the helplines management board so knew they were involved in the supervision of the service. You went on to say that you had had complaints about the quality of service by G4S employees and that there was evidence of a loss of trust in the service. Finally, you said you had been made aware that there may have been something untoward about the way the government procured the service in the first place.
Yesterday, I learnt that the EHRC has just dropped its investigation into Tory Islamophobia because the Tories have told them they’re doing their own “independent” investigation. This raises serious concerns given that the EHRC didn’t consider dropping their investigation into alleged anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, despite the fact that the Labour Party undertook their own extensive investigation. For example, in May 2016, the Jewish Chronicle boasted that the Chairman of the EHRC, David Isaac and the Chief Executive of the EHRC, Rebecca Hilsenrath, represented “a strong Jewish presence at the top of Britain’s equality watch-dog”.
Perhaps this explains their eagerness to investigate allegations of anti-Semitism and their apparent disinterest in investigating Islamophobia or other forms of prejudice and inequality.
Please let me know what you can do to raise your concerns about this most recent unacceptable development.
Yours sincerely, David Cannon.
Two questions :
i) Who funds the EHRC ?
ii) Who appoints the membership of the EHRC?
David Hawkins can you please provide precise details?
It is disgraceful how the EHRC have reacted, but unfortunately not surprising. The public don’t understand the full facts and they genuinely believe its Jeremy Corbyn that is rascist, they don’t say he is anti-Semite anymore, the public say he is a rascist. It is not rocket science to see what has happened here. Firstly EHRC were investigating the labour party for antisemitism. Then a complaint against Islam has not been upheld against the Tories. The public think its Corbyn that had the islamophobia complaint made against him. You cant help wonder if this was intentional. Jeremy Corbyn has had the old schoolyard trick played on him. Bullies turn it around so the ones who are not the bullies but are the defenders have it turned on them to make it look like they are the bullies. It is grossly unfair on the muslims as well, why is it been allowed to happen ? it is not right, they are as British as anyone . They do have their own religion and are entitled to it. We are mainly atheists now, yet that is not why this is happening. This country is supposed to be tolerant of all people, this is increasingly not the case.
All racism is disgusting, and in this day and age, we are supposed to be ‘enlightened’…. Is racism handed down from parents to children, I wonder?
One could criticise the Muslim treatment of women, but this ongoing crime could be attributed to all faiths and races, all of which are patriarchal.*
Unlikely that Tory Govt would be bothered about that.
However, would an investigation jeopardise the sacred relationship with their extraordinarily wealthy Emirate friends who now own/support icons of British upper classness; and Saudi which buys more UK manufactured armaments than any of the many other, inappropriate, customers. It employs Brit technicians to maintain the Typhoon and Tornado bombers used to slaughter Yemeni civilians – contrary to UK law and the Min of Def’s supposedly squeaky-clean export policy. That’s ‘British Values’ for you!
How can one expect any morality?
*(In the UK, guess who has suffered most from Austerity and Covid-19; earn less because traditionally female jobs, eg nursing, are considered more a duty and less valuable; though film stars – and even Teresa May gets paid less for speaking engagements than her male counterparts. Last week, Govt suggested a 2yr pay freeze for nurses! How many women are murdered by their partners/ex partners every year? etc…etc….)
David Cannon asks David Hawkins for precise details of Rebecca Hilsenrath’s partiality. The query is somewhat vague, but vis a vis her support for Zionism, the Mission Statement of the Hertsmere Jewish Primary School, which appears to be one of the two she founded (the other is Yavneh College) includes in its statement of Orthodox Judaism “the centrality of Israel in Jewish life”. Interestingly, my google search on this issue in the last fifteen minutes was much less productive than a comparable search at the time of the launch of the EHRC inquiry into the LP – has the record been cleaned to avoid this issue? Next search to be conducted on Yavneh College.
It is also interesting to look at the somewhat fawning material on her in legal websites: she appears to endorse the increase in the corporatisation of the legal profession, which seems to be in sync with the ConDem attack on easy and universal access to legal justice (remember Vince Cable on tribunal fees, and look at e.g. the Barrister Blogger on the general ConDem, wrecking of the justice system in general). The bourgeois legal system is built around private property and to replace it will take a huge struggle including but not restricted to regular codification, a unicameral annual parliament, sharp popular control of parliamentary drafting and of the Law Commission. As it stands, we often need to use the bourgeois law but it is an undemocratic substitute for solidarity.
Peter Oborne should be praised for his continuling pursuit of genuine investigative journalism. Such as he are an incrasingly rare beast in this ‘profession’ populated fom an increasingly limited network of the privileged.
That :
“the EHRC concluded “it would not be proportionate to initiate our own investigation at this stage”.
… is hardly surprising, given its partial bhaviour in respect of Labour.
The body (fulfilling a much-needed role) is obviously not fit for purpose as presently constituted – another symptom of current flaws in the civic life of a nation more in the grip of graft and fakery than ever.
A couple of years ago I read a review of a book by Shlomo Sand*** in
“The Guardian Review”:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/04/the-end-of-the-french-intellectual-by-shlomo-sand-review
As its title suggests the book is concerned about the quality of French intellectual life – in which the author provides a history. On reading the review I was struck by a quote of a passage which occurs at the end of the book. This concerns a comparison of anti semitism (at the time of the Dreyfus affair ) with current islamophobia:
‘ Sand looks at a cartoon of Muhammad published in Charlie Hebdo, “a cruel-looking bearded figure wrapped in a white jellaba, his eyes hidden and holding a long pointed knife”. He has seen that image before. Where? In the Jew-hating cartoons published in the 1890s in La Libre Parole to whip up antisemitic sentiment during the Dreyfus affair. “ ‘
*** a professor of history in Tel Aviv