Latest news with #MuhbeenHussain
Telegraph
15-07-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
We still haven't learnt the correct lessons from the grooming gangs scandal
News that an MBE has been awarded for 'services to integration' and 'cohesion' to a man who allegedly led a Muslim boycott of South Yorkshire Police in Rotherham after the grooming gangs scandal demonstrates how the correct lessons still haven't been learnt. Muhbeen Hussain, according to The Sunday Times, called on Muslims in Rotherham to boycott the police in October 2015, just months after Baroness Casey's report on the failings of the authorities there. The group he founded, British Muslim Youth, reportedly warned other Muslim organisations that failure to boycott the police would lead to them being boycotted in return. As the shadow home secretary Chris Philp recently pointed out on X, Hussain was on the Victoria Derbyshire programme in October 2015 and he said that 'first and foremost, the police pushed a pernicious lie' by saying they didn't make arrests of grooming gang abusers due to 'fears of being called racist'. In a recent statement he has called the criticism of him a 'deliberate attempt to defame me' and has claimed he has always had a 'consistent, public, and unequivocal' record on the grooming gangs by leading a protest against them and condemning them in public. He also said that the 'boycott had absolutely nothing to do with grooming gangs' and was instead about the supposed failure of the police to protect Muslims in the town from the far-Right. Despite his protests, he doesn't seem to spend much time on the issue of grooming gangs any more, and doesn't seem to have tweeted about the recent release of Baroness Casey's audit on the issue at all. This isn't the only controversial thing he has said. Back in 2017, he questioned whether Muslim youth were being properly heard, citing the case of Salman Abedi, the Manchester Arena bomber. He questioned whether Abedi's Libyan heritage led to his radicalisation, blaming the 'failed British intervention' against Gaddafi there. But Abedi's family were anti-Gadaffi asylum seekers and he himself had participated in the civil war, before being evacuated by the Royal Navy. He even used benefits money which his mother was still collecting, despite having moved back to Libya, to buy components for the bombs. Far from being unheard, Abedi had benefited from incredible generosity from Britain, which he chose to repay with murderous violence. Muhbeen Hussain works with the APPG on British Muslims and was co-creator of a report on a definition of Islamophobia, which think tank Policy Exchange warned risked being used to shut down discussion of grooming gangs. The same Policy Exchange paper pointed out that Muhbeen's uncle, Mahroof Hussain, was a Labour cabinet member and councillor in Rotherham, responsible for community cohesion. He stepped down in February 2015, after Baroness Casey's inspection of the Council, which said he had 'suppressed discussion' of grooming gangs in the town 'for fear of upsetting community relations'. Mahroof also has an MBE and in 2023, it was revealed by GB News that he was employed as the National Diversity, Inclusion & Participation Manager by Health Education England, a major NHS body. There he developed and implemented diversity and inclusion programmes. As inquiries in Rotherham found, the authorities have a big problem with institutional political correctness. It was fear of looking racist that played a major role in the grooming gangs not being exposed, until Andrew Norfolk of The Times went where others wouldn't. Ever since, there has been a concerted effort to brand the subject as racist, deploying language around tropes and stereotypes in an effort to make it taboo, while ignoring the anti-white racism that was often directed at the victims. Instead of giving out gongs for cohesion, we should accept that it was ideas like that which underpinned the scandal. The focus on community relations and fear of racial prejudice is what has underpinned the development of our two-tier legal system, which earlier this year nearly had different sentencing handed out depending on someone's skin colour. As the American journalist Helen Andrews recently pointed out, Australia had a similar issue in the early 2000s as Britain. Sydney was rocked by a series of gang-rapes, perpetrated by men of Lebanese and Pakistani heritage, targeting white Australian girls. The crimes were often explicitly racist. Instead of trying to preserve cohesion or prioritise community relations, Australia prosecuted the criminals and created a new offence that directly targeted gang rapists; this ensured that they spent decades in prison. By confronting the problem directly and being honest about the dangerous cultural attitudes of some immigrant groups, Australia was able to stop the problem in its tracks. Unlike here, the number of victims was in the tens, not the tens of thousands. It isn't too late in Britain. Baroness Casey's audit this year called for a national inquiry. One priority should be to reaffirm the need for colour-blind justice and re-examine the way in which people in the authorities failed the victims of the grooming gangs. Those like Mahroof Hussain, who have already been found to have failed in official reports, should be stripped of honours like his MBE. Those who are found to have played a serious role in the covering-up of abuse and failure to act should expect to be stripped of their pensions or sent to jail.
Times
12-07-2025
- Politics
- Times
MBE for man who led Muslim police boycott over grooming scandal
A man who led a Muslim community boycott of South Yorkshire police after the Rotherham grooming scandal has been awarded an MBE for 'services to integration' and 'cohesion'. Muhbeen Hussain called on Muslims to sever ties with the force and 'take all the necessary action to protect ourselves' in October 2015, the year after the force's failure to investigate thousands of allegations of abuse and rape had been exposed. His campaign group warned: 'Any Muslim groups or institutions in Rotherham that do not adhere to this policy of disengagement will also be boycotted by the Muslim community.' Asked what motivated him, he told the BBC it was 'first and foremost' the police's 'pernicious lie' that it had failed to act on grooming allegations 'because of fears of being called racist'. He argued that this amounted to an attempt to 'scapegoat' Muslims. Hussain also said police had failed to protect the community from the far right. The boycott came shortly after the racially aggravated murder of a local Muslim man. Less than a year earlier, the government had said 'institutionalised political correctness' had contributed to the scandal. Theresa May, then the home secretary, made the statement in response to an inquiry by Alexis Jay, which found that within social services, 'there was a widespread perception that messages conveyed by some senior people in the council and also the police, were to 'downplay' the ethnic dimensions of [child sexual exploitation]'. • How the child sex grooming gangs scandal unfolded over 20 years Hussain has repeatedly defended the boycott in the years since. In 2017, the leader of Rotherham council refused to meet him on the grounds of his 'divisive recklessness'. He responded by writing a public letter questioning the leader's fitness for office and claiming his position brought the local authority into disrepute. Today, he runs the all-party parliamentary group on British Muslims and holds a House of Commons pass sponsored by Naz Shah, the Bradford West MP. His MBE for 'political services to integration cohesion and to British society' was announced in the King's birthday honours list last month. Sir John Jenkins, a senior fellow at the Policy Exchange think tank who served as UK ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Syria, called for the honour to be reviewed, saying the boycott was inconsistent with the principle of community cohesion. He said: 'Mr Hussain's pending award of the MBE brings the system into discredit. 'The government should review the system of due diligence applied to those being awarded honours to understand how Mr Hussain's prior activity in boycotting the police was overlooked and to implement steps to avoid such awards in future.' It is not known who nominated Hussain for the honour. Applications can be submitted by any member of the public before being vetted by a committee supported by civil servants in the Cabinet Office. • Gangs raped 'lost' girls because no one cared Hussain has previously said he has long acknowledged the scale of the grooming scandal perpetrated by British Pakistani males, noting that British Muslim Youth, the group he co-founded, organised one of the first demonstrations against 'these criminals that were claiming to be from our community'. He has said, by dint of their criminality, those connected to Rotherham were not Muslims but that he had marched to condemn them anyway. Hussain announced his boycott more than a year after Jay's report on sexual exploitation in Rotherham found that at least 1,400 girls, some as young as 11, were abused between 1997 and 2013 in the town. Jay cited internal police reviews in 2003 and 2006 that found it was 'believed by a number of workers that one of the difficulties that prevent [child sexual abuse] being dealt with effectively is the ethnicity of the main perpetrators'. She referenced evidence which found: 'Young people in Rotherham believed at that time that the police dared not act against Asian youths for fear of allegations of racism.' In October2015, British Muslim Youth, the group Hussain led, published its statement saying the Muslim community had been 'under perpetual attack and demonisation' since the Jay report. It read: 'During this whole period the Muslim community have been made prisoners in their own homes. South Yorkshire police have piggybacked on this hostile environment towards the Muslim community by deflecting the attention of their own failures by scapegoating us. They have peddled a pernicious lie that: historically they failed to act of allegations of [child sexual exploitation], because they were afraid of being branded 'racist'.' On this basis, it said, Muslims had agreed to 'cut all lines of engagement and communication with South Yorkshire police'. It said: 'If South Yorkshire police cannot adequately protect and serve the Muslim residents of Rotherham then moving forward we will take all the necessary action to protect ourselves within the confines of the law, while maintaining a process of disengagement and non-communication with South Yorkshire police.' • How the child sex grooming gangs scandal unfolded over 20 years The boycott was rescinded in less than a week in response to a public outcry and after negotiations with Sarah Champion, the MP for Rotherham. She defused the dispute by agreeing to meet Hussain in parliament and vowing to write to May. Hussain defended his actions, telling the Rotherham Advertiser: 'It wasn't a publicity stunt, but we want people to listen. Like any trade union would call a strike, we had to have this boycott.' Hussain repeatedly claimed the police had argued it had not acted on allegations because of a fear of being 'branded racist'. This, he said, helped them to shift blame away from themselves and towards Muslims, in the process of avoiding accountability for their own incompetence, corruption and failure to believe working-class victims. Hussain also said he believed the force had failed to protect Muslims from far-right demonstrations and violence. On Saturday night he said in a statement: 'My record in countering extremism and terrorism from the age of 14, which has included speaking out unequivocally against grooming gangs including those of Pakistani origin, leading the first demonstration against such criminals and working to break barriers between intrafaith and interfaith communities, speaks for itself. 'I have a distinguished track record in building bridges for communities and I was delighted and honoured to be offered an MBE in the forthcoming King's birthday honours in recognition of this work. I look forward to continuing to work on community cohesion and interfaith understanding going forward.'
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Muslims were ‘scapegoats' in grooming gang scandal, said Labour aide behind Islamophobia definition
A Labour aide who helped to produce a controversial Islamophobia definition previously claimed Muslims were made 'scapegoats' for a grooming gang scandal. Muhbeen Hussain, a parliamentary researcher, was closely involved in producing the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) definition in 2018 which Kemi Badenoch said last week would bar discussion of grooming gangs if adopted by the Government. Now a new report has revealed that Mr Hussain led a boycott of South Yorkshire Police in 2015 over claims it had 'scapegoated' Muslims in its crackdown on grooming gangs in Rotherham. It will add to fears that the definition would amount to a 'blasphemy law' and prevent people speaking out against alleged crimes of ethnic minority groups. The report, produced by the think tank Policy Exchange, cited the boycott as one of several examples where accusations of 'Islamophobia' have been used to 'suppress' attempts to expose grooming gangs. Andrew Gilligan and Paul Stott, its authors, said it showed a new Islamophobia definition risked being exploited 'by wrongdoers who are Muslim, or their allies, to smear or deter those who seek to expose them'. 'As in Rotherham, the charge of Islamophobia is often used by wrongdoers who are Muslim, or their allies, to smear or deter those who seek to expose them,' they said. 'Any official definition would make this problem worse. 'The purpose of an official Islamophobia definition is not to stop anti-Muslim hatred or discrimination – which are already illegal – but to create special protections for one faith. 'The Government rejects claims of two-tier policing. But adopting any form of Islamophobia definition would clearly create two-tier policy, formalising different treatment of people depending on their religion. 'This would be very damaging for community cohesion, and for the position of British Muslims.' Mr Hussain, who is now a researcher for Labour MP Naz Shah, organised a two-day boycott of South Yorkshire Police in 2015. In a statement at the time, the British Muslim Youth organisation, which he led, accused the force of 'scapegoating' local Muslims. 'South Yorkshire Police have piggybacked on this hostile environment towards the Muslim community by deflecting the attention of their own failures by scapegoating us,' it said. 'They have peddled a pernicious lie that: historically they failed to act of allegations of CSE [child sexual exploitation], because they were afraid of being branded 'racist'.' The local council's inquiry into abuse in Rotherham found in 2014 that the 'fear of being thought racist' had inhibited the authorities' response to the sexual abuse of thousands of children by predominantly Pakistani Muslim men. Mr Hussain repeated his claim in a BBC interview with Victoria Derbyshire. There is no suggestion that he had any personal involvement in grooming. Mr Hussain went on to work for the APPG on British Muslims, which in 2018 defined Islamophobia as 'rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness'. An accompanying report compiled by the APPG said the concept of 'Asian grooming gangs' was a 'modern-day iteration' of 'age-old stereotypes and tropes about Islam', and that discussion around grooming gangs could 'heighten vulnerability of Muslims to hate crimes'. The APPG has insisted that its definition does not stop people 'talking about sex groomers' and that there is 'nothing Islamophobic about addressing any crime'. But the definition has been criticised for being so widely drawn that it curbs free speech, represents a de facto blasphemy law and stifles legitimate criticism of Islam as a religion. Labour has already adopted the APPG's definition and is now planning a council overseen by Angela Rayner to advise on a definition for the government. Dominic Grieve, the former Conservative attorney general, has been 'recommended' to chair the council within Ms Rayner's Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. He wrote the foreword to the APPG's report in 2018 which set out the controversial definition. Mr Hussain was approached for comment. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
