An angry response to what seemed to me to be a well-intentioned, albeit somewhat clumsy, government letter to mosques was blamed over the weekend on a failure to engage with Muslim communities. Eric Pickles, the secretary of state for communities and local government, was criticised by the Muslim Council of Britain for appearing to suggest that Muslims were not currently a part of British society.
Former Conservative party chair Sayeeda Warsi claimed in an article that the Muslim Council of Britain’s reaction was caused by the failure of successive governments to engage with Muslim groups – including the Muslim Council – while at the same time admitting that while the council is certainly not extremist it is unrepresentative of modern Muslim men and women.
I take issue with her allegation that the last Labour government failed to engage.
As secretary of state for communities and local government between 2007 and 2009 I made it my mission to speak to Muslims across the country. I set up national Advisory Groups with Muslim women and young people bringing together Muslims with a wide range of views and from different backgrounds.
The Young Muslims Advisory Group included regional representatives advising the government on issues including discrimination and unemployment. It organised two successful national conferences, each attended by more than 400 young people. I met these advisory groups personally at least every six weeks to discuss issues of concern. And I met with Muslim groups from every part of the country, from the smallest two person groups to larger community groups.
Unfortunately, this scale and type of engagement has not been continued by the department for communities and local government under the coalition. Its counter-terror strategy has been increasingly driven by the Home Office, meaning a shift in focus to those who have already been radicalised rather than seeking to strengthen the resilience of young people and their families to counter these messages of the extremists.
Baroness Warsi fails to acknowledge that the lack of engagement is made worse because the strong relationships forged by the last Labour government have been neglected. I am not convinced either by her argument that the government’s failure to engage is because it treats all Muslim groups with suspicion. I agree that ministers should not share a platform with real extremists – but they should make greater efforts to work with those who want to develop a real sense of what it means to be a Muslim in modern Britain.
Our new counter-terror strategy must be underpinned by a commitment to work with ordinary Muslim people, leaders and scholars to challenge the radical minority and their warped take on Islam – and to prevent others from following their path. That means not only engaging with those who claim to speak for all Muslims, but going into local communities and talking to a range of people on the ground. That is what Labour did when we were last in power, and it is something I have consistently urged the coalition to do from the backbenches and as a member of the parliamentary intelligence and security committee.
Just last week, I heard from members of the Muslim community at a roundtable event I organised at the House of Commons to discuss the United Kingdom’s counter-extremism strategy. At the event, I called for both government and Muslim communities to work together to take on the twisted propaganda of extremists and develop a counter-narrative based upon what it really means to be a British Muslim. Representatives of Muslim groups had the opportunity to talk to the likes of David Anderson QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, security minister James Brokenshire, academics and members of the intelligence and security committee.
Bringing people together in this way can help us to build the trust and understanding needed to enable us to focus upon defeating the ideology of hate – rather than empty posturing and squabbling over a letter.
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Hazel Blears MP is a former secretary of state for communities and local government
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