Allison Pearson, Telegraph, April 29, 2015

’Tis the election season, so promises fall from the lips of our leaders over key voting groups like blossom from an apple tree. Some promises are more cynical and stinky than others.

Take Ed Miliband, who told Muslim News last week that a future Labour government would outlaw Islamophobia, making it an aggravated crime.

“We are going to make sure it is marked on people’s records, with the police to make sure they root out Islamophobia as a hate crime,” said Miliband. “We are going to change the law so we make it absolutely clear of [sic] our abhorrence of hate crime and Islamophobia. It will be the first time that the police will record Islamophobic attacks right across the country.”

This is deeply disturbing. Do you reckon the Labour leader has read any of the recent reports into child-sex grooming gangs? You know, the ones that concluded that the main reason local authorities, police and social services did nothing to protect thousands of young girls from abuse at the hands of mainly Pakistani men was because they were afraid of appearing racist?

One taxi driver actually laughed as he informed his victim that her complaints would be in vain because “they won’t dare touch us”. He was absolutely right.

Shamefully, fear of alienating “the community” has guided the behaviour of Labour councils in parts of the country that have become bywords for the rape, torture and trafficking of mainly vulnerable white girls.

Far from focusing on Islamophobia, Mr Miliband should be directing Labour apparatchiks, brainwashed about the joys of multiculturalism, to root out the hate crime of misogyny, still considered acceptable by so many in “the community”. A phobia is an irrational fear.

It’s perfectly rational to be outraged by the figures that follow: Rochdale 65, Rotherham 1,400, Newcastle 93, Manchester 650, Derby 27… and on and on, in pain and infamy.

These figures are the recorded instances of vile abuse against girls in Labour areas that rely on the Muslim vote. When tallied up, the tally stands at well in excess of 4,000 children.

As Denis McShane, former Labour MP for Rotherham, has admitted “misplaced racial sensitivity”–aka fear of being seen as “Islamophobic”–prevented him from burrowing into the widespread sexual abuse allegations and the oppression of women in the Muslim community. A group of “influential Pakistani councillors” in Rotherham were accused of blocking attempts to tackle the abuse and also of meddling in domestic abuse cases involving Asian woman.

A new aggravated crime of “Islamophobia” makes it even less likely that such brutes will be outed. Meanwhile, if Ed Miliband has anything to do with it, I too will have my name recorded by the police.

Back in February, I wrote an article here about Britain’s first elected Muslim mayor, Lutfur Rahman, who was clearly running Tower Hamlets in east London as if it were some personal fiefdom in Bangladesh. Mr Rahman was accused of “subverting democracy” and “systematically stealing votes”. Muslim voters were warmed that it was “unIslamic” not to vote for him. Anyone who dared to challenge the Mayor’s shocking behaviour was branded–wait for it–Islamophobic.

The police did almost nothing to investigate allegations of widespread electoral fraud. It fell to four local individuals to bring Rahman to court and to that superb journalist, Andrew Gilligan of this parish, to keep up the pressure.

After my article appeared, the Telegraph received a lengthy complaint from an organisation called Tower Hamlets First, which demanded a prominently printed apology to Rahman, and described my piece on him as “thoroughly contemptible in the moral sense”. Most amusing.

It was a relief, though hardly a surprise, when Election Commissioner Richard Mawrey, who sat as a judge in the High Court, ruled last week that Rahman played “race” and “religious” cards, and was guilty of corruption and illegal practices. Mayor Rahman’s election was declared void and the judge described “an alarming state of affairs in Tower Hamlets driven by the ruthless ambitions of one man”.

If Ed Miliband’s new hard line on Islamophobia becomes law, men like Rahman could thrive unchallenged and our country will be even less able to defend itself against practices and customs that we find utterly abhorrent.

Does the Labour leader prefer to offer comfort to the Lutfur Rahmans, or should he, instead, be helping abused girls from the working class that his party was set up to protect? Is that a price you’re willing to pay, Ed, to keep the Muslim vote onside? Really?

If Miliband’s definition of Islamophobia includes shouting until one’s last breath against the disgusting chauvinists who prey on young girls and treat women as second-class citizens, then please do count me in. I’d gladly go to jail for that. The alternative, you see, is throroughly contemptible in the moral sense.