UK Muslims have been badly affected and strongly criticised recent anti-Muslim measures by the government and inflammatory remarks made by UK ministers which provoked new waves of Islamophobic attacks across the country. These have included remarks by Gordon Brown, Ruth Kelly and calls by Reid for Muslim parents to spy on their children as potential terrorist suspects as well comments by the House of Commons leader Jack Straw in which he asked Muslim women to remove their full-face veils, remarks that were supported by the British Prime Minister himself.
 
Also an experienced Muslim firearms officer was removed from a close-protection unit guarding senior dignitaries, including UK Prime Minister Tony Blair after he was told he was a threat to national security because his children had attended a mosque with a Muslim cleric the government “believes” is linked to some terrorist organisation.

All this is aimed at feeding the news agenda, i.e. raising anti-Muslim frenzy in the society and propagate that Muslims stand as an obstacle preventing society integration.

Analysts exposed the true agenda behind recent anti-Muslim measures adopted under the guise of protecting the country and preventing terror attacks, accusing Blair’s government of developing a narrative to justify further radical measures domestically in an attempt to distract the attention internationally from its failure in Iraq, and thus escape the blame for the debacle and chaos it created there.

Anti-Muslim rhetoric reached its peak with recent speech by the head of MI5, Dame Eliza ManninghamBuller, in which she alleged that "young people are being groomed for suicide bombing", warning of the false threat of radicalisation and calling for adopting ways to confront it, a process she claimed would take a ”a generation” fulfill.

Again these claims occupied the majority of the Western papers’ leading headlines and became the subject of editorials; same way a story on the BBC alleging that Al Qaeda had made Britain its number one target, even though no evidence was given for this, spread throughout mainstream media.

As admitted by John Reid in a private meeting of ministers, the British government is loosing “the battle of ideas” which prompted the British Prime Minister Tony Blair, following the alleged terror plot to blow up UK flights to the U.S., order a “tougher stance” (against Muslims).

During the meeting, according to sources, one minister said that Blair was said to have ordered colleagues to start working with "the leaders, not the panderers" in the Muslim community.

The very same agenda was further stressed on 9th October, by British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett during a speech at RUSI, in which she, again, attempted to deflect attention of the government's failed Iraq policy.

In response to the past weeks’ continuous bias by the British government and officials towards Muslims, a leading British charity criticized Blair over his counter-terrorism strategy, warning that the what the government calls “anti-terror” measures were having a disproportionate effect on the country's 1.8 million Muslim community.

"The actions of ministers, particularly Home Secretary John Reid, could have a “boomerang effect” by alienating the Muslim communities whose trust and cooperation are vital," the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust said.

It also accused the government of playing to a “tabloid agenda,” saying that its "anti-terrorism campaign was often driven by party political and electoral motives that are 'submerging' its own 'sensible' counter-terrorism strategy."

Wise plans to combat terror are now being "submerged by the government's "electoral motives," the charity said in its report, accusing UK ministers of "exploiting the politics of fear."

Blair’s government is feeding the news agenda in a way that instigates fear in the wider society, so as to fulfil what the British Prime Minister said in his speech in Los Angeles- the need of the West to adopt plans to confront what he labeled “political Islam” through propaganda and deceit.

The past weeks’ anti-Muslim measures adopted by the government and speeches by leading political figures in the UK are just preparation for what we’ll see in the main headlines the coming weeks, where Muslims will once again be demonized in order to facilitate the passage of new measures and legislation.

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