Senior politicians must stop stigmatising Muslims by making them feel responsible for Islamist terrorism, according to a report that aims to reset the government’s approach to dealing with religious groups.
Muslims are being marginalised in a number of areas of British life, according to the report by the government’s faith adviser, Colin Bloom, including by being made to feel they frequently have to renounce terrorist acts. Bloom also urged ministers to develop sharia-compliant student loans to help more Muslims into university, and to conduct an outreach programme to increase their representation in the armed forces.
The comments are part of a sweeping review of the government’s interactions with faith groups at every level of society. The Guardian has previously revealed several of the report’s other main recommendations, including government crackdowns on forced marriage and unregistered religious schools.
Bloom’s comments on Islam provide some of the most eye-catching parts of the report, however, providing a marked contrast with the tone of much of the government’s recent messaging on Islamist terrorism.
Bloom warns in the report: “Islamist extremism, Islamist-inspired terrorism, and the support of terrorist and extremist organisations … are as repulsive to mainstream British Muslims as the acts of Anders Breivik are to mainstream British Christians. If no effort is undertaken to relieve this situation, sadly many British Muslims will struggle to feel fully accepted and integrated within society.”
He adds: “During this review’s stakeholder engagement, many Muslims described, often poignantly, how society has made them feel stigmatised and somehow responsible for or secretly supportive of acts of Islamist terrorism.
“This reviewer has reason to believe that this happens at all levels of society, including at the very top. Those in the political sphere are not immune from such stigmatisation, with baseless allegations of Islamist extremist sympathy and concerning anti-Muslim language not unheard of.”
The language differs in tone from that of the recent review by William Shawcross of the government’s Prevent strategy, which warned: “The facts clearly demonstrate that the most lethal threat in the last 20 years has come from Islamism, and this threat continues.”
Bloom’s report contains 22 recommendations for ministers, including:
Giving every public servant, including doctors, teachers and police officers, mandatory religious training
Regulating unregulated faith schools
Introducing sharia-compliant student loans
Conducting a review of radicalisation in prisons
Launching a campaign to recruit more Muslim soldiers
Cracking down on religiously motivated white supremacists
Investigating Sikh extremism
Using the online safety bill to crack down on material that promotes religious hatred
Funding a new programme to help people who are leaving coercive religious environments
Reforming and properly resourcing the government’s forced marriage unit
The government welcomed the report on Wednesday, though did not commit to implementing any of its recommendations.
Lady Jane Scott, the faith minister, said in a statement: “I welcome this review and thank Colin for his work. We will carefully consider the recommendations and I’ll make it my mission to continue to work closely with those of all faiths.”
Some religious campaigners also welcomed its findings. Yehudis Fletcher, who founded a thinktank to campaign against Jewish extremism, said: “We strongly support the Bloom review recommendations in relation to schools, coercion within marriage, and faith-based extremism and exploitation.”
Humanists UK welcomed Bloom’s “positive and thoughtful engagement”. But its chief executive, Andrew Copson, added: “The report puts religion and religious groups on a pedestal, set up for exclusive funding, consultation, and partnerships with government all overseen by a ‘Faith Champion’. These proposals aren’t merited, the public don’t want them, and they are based on a flawed analysis of our country.”
The report was published on Wednesday, four years after it was first commissioned by the then prime minister, Boris Johnson. It runs to about 160 pages and 65,000 words, dealing with everything from the role of chaplains in prisons to the growing threat posed by Sikh and Hindu nationalists.
On several occasions, Bloom highlights how Muslims are being marginalised by government policy, whether deliberately or not. He warns, for example, that 12,000 Muslims are being put off university every year because Islamic teaching says paying or receiving interest is a sin.
The report says: “Given the strength of evidence, it is regrettable that little has been done recently to progress proposals for alternative student finance.”
Bloom also says the armed forces are failing to recruit enough people from Islamic backgrounds, pointing to data showing that Muslims make up 0.5% of British forces, as compared with 6.5% of the general population.
The report highlights several other areas where Bloom argued that public servants have a poor understanding of religious communities. Police officers and NHS staff, for example, often mistake Sikhs for Muslims or serve halal meals to Hindus.
But it also urges ministers to be bolder in tackling abusive practices within religious communities, whether stopping coercive marriages or regulating faith schools, which often slip under Ofsted’s radar.
