A Government campaign against Islamophobia could prevent grooming gangs guilty of horrific offences against children being brought to justice, a Labour politician has warned. Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has appointed a group to draw up an official definition of Islamophobia.

But Labour member of the House of Lords Maurice Glasman said it would prevent people speaking about grooming gangs. He said: “Saying that ‘the systematic rape by overwhelmingly Pakistani Muslim men of underage English girls over more than two decades’ is not a sentence that should result in somebody losing their job or reputation. The potential new definition of Islamophobia could mean exactly that.”

A new policy note from think tank Policy Exchange calls for the Government to suspend the working group developing a definition of Islamophobia, at least until the National Inquiry on Grooming Gangs has concluded. The group is chaired by former Conservative Dominic Grieve.

Former top UK Diplomat Sir John Jenkins, the ex-Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and co-author of the report, has refused to engage with Grieve’s group. In a letter to Grieve – published for the first time today – he warns that any official definition of Islamophobia “will almost certainly turbocharge ‘cancel culture’” and would “be an undeniable act of two-tier policy, creating special status and protection for members of one faith alone.”

While there have always been concerns any definition would restrict freedom of speech and the ability to discuss problems in society openly, those concerns are now amplified. Baroness Casey, who published a damning report into the grooming scandal, was among those accused of Islamophobia for her work on Rotherham. In 2017, she was nominated by one Islamist activist group as “Islamophobe of the Year” for her original report into the scandal.

The late Andrew Norfolk, the journalist who did more than any other to expose the scale of the grooming gang scandal in Rotherham, was also repeatedly denounced for having thereby amplified Islamophobia.

When Sir Trevor Phillips, the former founding Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, was suspended from the Labour Party for alleged Islamophobia, the first item cited in the disciplinary letter from the party to him was that he had written about “the exposure of systematic and longstanding abuse by men, mostly of Pakistani Muslim origin in the North of England.”

Anti-Muslim hatred and discrimination should continue to be prosecuted whenever it occurs, utilising existing legislation, the Police Exchange think tank said.