Once again, this is exactly what I have been saying for years. It is good to see reality breaking through, but it is more likely that the Conservatives will cut ties with Wasiq Wasiq than that they will heed him.

“‘Junk idea of Islamophobia’ says adviser to Conservative racism inquiry,” by Basit Mahmood and Peter Oborne, Middle East Eye, March 31, 2021 (thanks to Henry):

The Conservative Party’s investigation into Islamophobia and other forms of prejudice within the party has recruited an adviser who has called for the idea of Islamophobia to be “junked”, Middle East Eye can reveal.

Wasiq Wasiq, a PhD student at King’s College London, is part of a three-person panel headed by Swaran Singh, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Warwick who was appointed to lead the inquiry in December 2019.

In a column published by the Spiked website under the headline “We need to junk the idea of ‘Islamophobia’”, Wasiq wrote that the term was “an attempt to create a modern-day blasphemy law” and questioned whether Muslims should be considered victims of racism because of their religion.

In another article for Spiked, Wasiq defended Boris Johnson’s Conservative government from accusations of Islamophobia.

The revelation will further raise fears that the party’s investigation is not sufficiently independent, or a serious attempt to tackle Islamophobia, with Singh having previously come under scrutiny over his views, also published in Spiked, on the conflict in Kashmir….

Article posted with permission from Robert Spencer