Schools Must Teach Britain Is an ‘Immigration Nation’ to Fight Islamophobia

The government should empower NGOs and race activists to police the media to ensure ethnic minorities are not portrayed in a bad light, and the school curriculum must be changed so that every child is taught Britain has no native population, according to a new report on Islamophobia.

In Islamophobia: Still a Challenge for Us All, “race relations” think tank the Runnymede Trust alleges that “anti-Muslim racism” is responsible for all inequalities between Muslims and other groups in Britain “across a range of outcomes, from health, housing and environment to education, employment and criminal justice”.

Lamenting that Muslims are subject to “demonisation” and “racial stereotyping” in Britain, one of the report’s 10 main recommendations is that the press and media be overhauled to ensure that news coverage is produced so as not to fuel negative perceptions of minority ethnic or religious groups.

A press regulator should “investigate the prevalence of Islamophobia, racism and hatred espoused in the press”. which would not only look at the accuracy of coverage, but also examine whether “individual stories have wider negative effects on whole ethnic groups, and on wider social attitudes”, according to the report.

As well as urging the press and wider media establish ethnic diversity quota targets for their journalists, editors, and senior management, the Trust writes that politicians must show “greater accountability for the impact on race relations of negative media coverage … of minority ethnic and religious groups.”

To this end, it recommends the government set up a team of people from “race equality NGOs”, local authorities, and media practitioners “to initiate new strategies to combat racial prejudice in the media and negative public perceptions of minority ethnic groups”.

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[Editor’s Note: The 90+ page report “Islamophobia: Still a Challenge to Us All” is available here.]