Lindsay de Sausmarez, chief minister of Guernsey (Langlois Photography)

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“This is my personal theory: I like to think it’s down to our exceptional milk,” says Lindsay de Sausmarez, chief minister of Guernsey. “We have very good milk here – the best in the world.”

The island’s people, de Sausmarez explains, are living longer. Life expectancy in Guernsey is 82 for men and 85 for women, respectively three and two years longer than the UK.

With that trend come social and economic challenges to which de Sausmarez has been charged with responding.

The 48-year-old mother of four, who has a background in the creative industries, was elected to the island’s parliament, the States of Guernsey, in 2016. Like most of her colleagues, she is an independent and is reluctant to put a label on her ideology, saying it is “very difficult to overlay Guernsey politics over the UK system”. Online quizzes, however, tend to place her “bang in the middle” of the political spectrum.

In the summer of last year, de Sausmarez made history by becoming Guernsey’s first female chief minister. Officially, her title is President of the Policy and Resources Committee, as Guernsey’s government does not have a cabinet system and instead operates through committees.

“To be completely honest, it wasn’t a role I’d been eyeing up at all,” she tells The House. “I’d been very happy in my previous role, but we have a system where we go where the parliament thinks you can do the most good.”

Her elevation to the top job comes at a critical chapter in Guernsey’s politics, as she and her colleagues grapple with a health system in need of financial reform, a lack of affordable housing and unsustainable tax arrangements.

Guernsey, like Jersey and the Isle of Man, is a Crown Dependency, meaning it is not part of the UK and is almost entirely self-governing, with no MP representing it in Westminster. The UK is responsible only for its defence and international relations.

Guernsey, therefore, is not part of the NHS, and islanders must pay for primary care such as GP visits, prescriptions, A&E treatment and ambulances. Secondary or specialist care is covered by the public purse. According to a BBC analysis, the average cost of seeing a GP in Guernsey is £73.

But with the ageing population, de Sausmarez’s government has warned that “health and care services risk becoming overburdened and financially unsustainable”. The States of Guernsey will agree a new funding model over the current parliament.

Insurance-based systems of the kind used in some EU countries will be examined as part of that work, she says, as will elements of the UK’s system, while acknowledging that Guernsey is “never going to be able to directly replicate” how the NHS works.

“We are very fortunate in that we don’t have many of the problems that are experienced in the UK system,” de Sausmarez points out.

“For example, there was quite a wonderful complaint a month or two ago, where someone complained that they had to wait up to 15 minutes in A&E to be seen. There are many in the UK’s health system who would give their right arm for problems like that.”

Getting more homes built is another priority: “Unlike a town of a similar size in the UK, you can’t just jump on a train to commute in, so we have particularly high housing costs here because space is at an absolute premium.”

The average price of a home in Guernsey is almost £600,000. The island’s government has pledged to commence development at a site it owns called Leale’s Yard, with capacity for more than 300 new properties.

[Brexit] was frustrating for us, because we had no say in the referendum

Brexit has also brought challenges. The Crown Dependencies were never formally part of the EU but were deeply enmeshed in it as they belonged to the bloc’s customs territory. They also enjoyed free movement of goods with Europe, albeit without the single market’s other three freedoms of movement relating to people, services and capital. With the UK’s departure, those arrangements ceased.

“It was frustrating for us, because we had no say in the referendum that led to us [feeling those impacts],” de Sausmarez says. “But it affected us very materially. We’ve had to devote very significant resource to adjusting to a post-Brexit world.”

Should the Crown Dependencies have been given a vote in the referendum, as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar was?

“I think many people would have welcomed a vote, because it did affect us so much,” the chief minister replies. “But we didn’t, and there’s no point in dwelling in the past.”

Gibraltar, which was allowed to vote because it was fully part of the EU, plumped for remain by 96 per cent. Would the result have been similar in Guernsey?

De Sausmarez “wouldn’t like to speculate” on that, though from personal conversations she had at the time, she thinks islanders’ views on the issue fell “quite stereotypically along generational lines”.

She adds that Guernsey was “as well-prepared for the result of that vote as we possibly could have been” and points out that Brexit also has brought some benefits.

“We now have control of our territorial waters up to 12 nautical miles. That’s a very helpful thing in terms of our offshore wind and our marine renewable energy aspirations.”

Guernsey has nevertheless taken a “very keen interest” in the UK-EU reset negotiations and has made clear to the UK government that it wants to be included if a youth mobility scheme is agreed.

The island’s tax system, meanwhile, is overdue for reform. Guernsey has no VAT, no inheritance tax and no capital gains tax. Income tax is set at a flat rate of just 20 per cent.

For several years, the island’s government has been spending more than it receives in revenues and has relied on historical reserves to deliver public services. With financial pressures expected to “only intensify”, the States of Guernsey has committed to agree and implement “a final decision” on a future tax regime before the island’s next election.

“There’s long been a recognition, for the most part, that we do need to put our public finances on a stronger and sustainable footing,” de Sausmarez says.

“It’s really a question of how it’s done, and that’s where the political rubber hits the road. It’s a very difficult one. No one, ultimately, wants to pay more tax – that’s just human nature.”

Guernsey remains an attractive location for offshore banking and fund management. Is it fair to call the island a ‘tax haven’, as many in the UK would see it?

“It’s not in any way accurate at all,” de Sausmarez replies. She accepts the island is a “low-tax jurisdiction”, but when it comes to suggestions of financial crime she points to an evaluation last year by Moneyval – the Council of Europe’s anti-money laundering body – which awarded pass ratings to Guernsey in six out of 11 categories.

While the report praised Guernsey for its implementation of targeted sanctions against the financing of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, it warned the island’s government that “fundamental” work was needed to improve the way it investigates, prosecutes and convicts money laundering offences.

De Sausmarez insists her government is “actively investing” in such improvements and takes the issue “very seriously”, while acknowledging that small jurisdictions like Guernsey will always face an “inherent challenge with the rate of prosecutions”.

In Westminster, meanwhile, Labour is heaping pressure on the Crown Dependencies to be more transparent about the ownership of companies registered in the islands. None of the dependencies have publicly accessible ‘registers of beneficial ownership’, which has become a growing source of frustration for the UK.

In its 2025 Anti-Corruption Strategy, the UK government said it expects the islands to introduce “broad and inclusive” access to the registers for those who have a “legitimate interest” in viewing them – such as journalists, academics and civil society organisations. The UK says it “anticipates” that the dependencies will have introduced this change by July this year, and that this will merely be an “interim step” towards fully publicly accessible registers.

The States of Guernsey will soon launch a consultation on how that interim change could be implemented.

Is de Sausmarez confident of Guernsey meeting the July deadline? “We can make it happen, but [not] until we’ve carried out the consultation. It’s really important that it’s workable – that’s why we’re undertaking a consultation – but we’re very much hoping to make it happen as quickly as we possibly can.”

She adds that the issue was discussed “in some detail” with Justice Secretary David Lammy at a meeting in December 2025.

According to a briefing note from the island’s government, shared with The House, Guernsey “has repeatedly expressed concern about the UK government’s suggestion that legitimate interest access to beneficial ownership registers should, in its opinion, be fully implemented by July 2026”.

It adds that while Guernsey “shares the objective of the UK… in seeking to fight all forms of financial crime”, the UK government should “continue to respect the constitutional status of the Crown Dependencies and avoid attempting to take unilateral actions which seek to impose UK parliamentary decisions or will upon Guernsey”. Failure to do so “would cause unprecedented constitutional problems”, it warns.

The matter is certain to be discussed at the UK’s Countering Illicit Finance Summit in June this year, just weeks before the July deadline.

As far as full public access to the registers is concerned, meanwhile, a spokesman for neighbouring Jersey tells The House that such a move “would not be compatible with Jersey’s international obligations, including those enshrined in its domestic laws”.

The Crown Dependencies point to a 2022 decision by the European Court of Justice, which found public registers to be incompatible with the rights to privacy and the protection of personal data.

De Sausmarez stresses, too, that Guernsey’s register of beneficial ownership has higher standards of verification and due diligence than the UK’s, and that full public access to it cannot be introduced on a whim.

“We’re not trying to hide anything,” she says. “We’re just trying to make sure that it actually works, because you can’t pick up something from another jurisdiction with a very different system, superimpose it on ours, and expect it to work.”

Responding, a Home Office spokeswoman tells The House: “As responsible international financial centres with close ties to the UK, the Crown Dependencies have an important role in championing high standards globally to reduce illicit finance.

“Our approach is collaborative and focused on practical delivery. The Anti-Corruption Strategy sets expectations, and we are working through them together.” 

At the end of 2008, Ford Motor Company was only months from running out of cash. It had a lackluster product lineup and a dys­functional culture of infighting, backstabbing, and excuses. Sound familiar? Kemi Badenoch has been reading about how under the leadership of a bold new CEO, Alan Mulally, the company came back from the brink and returned it to one of the world’s most successful carmakers.

That, she has told her MPs, is inspiring her model for the Conservative Party.

After another strong outing at PMQs – skewering Sir Keir Starmer for “stuffing government with paedophile apologists” – Badenoch headed to her office for lunch. Unusually for her, one that included sandwiches (though she opted for a ham and cheese croissant). She has been hosting a series of these meetings with her MPs, and this week it was the first of two sessions with members of the 2024 intake.

Badenoch explained that Mulally’s insight at Ford Motors was realising the company had become distracted by its luxury brands like Aston Martin, rather than focusing on Ford itself and what it originally did so well. Her own lesson was similar: invest in the party’s “stakeholder products” — the core Tory vote, what it wants, and what the Conservatives can credibly offer.

And she wants a “fresh” Conservative Party to do so, with a Tory insider saying “Kemi told them she wanted these new MPs to be the future face of the Tory party”. It went down well with the group, some of whom have recently been getting their first outings at the despatch box like Peter Fortune.

He understood Badenoch’s Ford comparison, I’m told, likening the Conservative Party to a failing business: first stop the crisis, then stabilise, and then rebuild. Right now, he suggested, the party is still in the early stages. 

As discussion ranged around the Leader of the Opposition’s office, MPs aired familiar frustrations and enecuragements. John Cooper urged the party to “get onto talking about the economy” as the route back to power, while still addressing the wound of immigration. Joe Robertson argued for a “more optimistic tone in how the party communicates” and “not just criticising the government”. Inevitably, the conversation drifted to the question that always arises when talk turns to renewal and making Badenoch’s New Conservatives: what to do about the past.

Both Lewis Cocking and Greg Stafford, I’m told, commented about the shadow cabinet. There were “too many faces reminding people of the last government”, and it being “frankly not very good”, with some not pulling their weight.

They are not alone. One LOTO figure told me: “Real surgery is needed at the top of the shadow cabinet – we’re talking the three great offices of state: Treasury, Foreign and Home.” That would mean shadow chancellor Mel Stride, shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel and shadow home secretary Chris Philp.

A senior Tory agrees in principle but not without caveats. “Every change has a cost,” they said. “What do you offer Mel and Priti? They’re already knighted and with a damehood. The Lords is an option, but that’s a way off.” One shadow cabinet member confided: “It needs to happen, though I fear it won’t any time soon.” Another said movement was inevitable, but only once Badenoch herself reaches that conclusion.

The argument for change is the freshness Badenoch has begun championing. “In the top jobs,” one shadow minister says, “we shouldn’t be so tainted by the past.” Patel, in particular, attracts criticism. Her association with the ‘Boriswave’ – an issue raised at this week’s lunch – and her robust defence of that record in a disastrous interview with Harry Cole are cited as reasons she should move on.

But she is loyal, and loyalty counts. “Kemi is very loyal and appreciates it,” one insider says. Another shadow cabinet colleague tells me they are “very keen for Tom Tugendhat to come into the fold,” and I’m told discussions have taken place, and may yet happen in the future.

When it comes to Philp those around him acknowledge “improvement in the job”, an “eagerness to get the message out”, and a grasp of deteialed Home Office legisaltion. Other colleagues say that same eagerness “comes across as too intense” and “doesn’t land well” with the public.

“The Home Office is such a vulnerability for Labour that we need our absolute top performer there,” one insider says. “Unfortunately, he probably isn’t.”

Stride, meanwhile, has two camps of defenders and detractors. Supporters describe him as offering “steadiness and reassurance” on the economy. Critics complain he lacks “punch” and “fight”. Polling has the Conservatives once again trusted most on the economy, which his allies say reflects his steady approach and resistance to gimmicks. “He has rare experience of both business and the Treasury,” one Tory notes. “That’s a big risk to give up.” Those less convinced argue he is “not dynamic enough” of a choice and “doesn’t cut through”.

Stride hosted a dinner for MPs at his London home on Tuesday, shoes removed at the front door, lubricated by wine and Vesper martinis “that would kill a horse”. Some attendees wondered whether it was an exercise in wooing. One guest told me: “I suspect Mel was doing a bit of self-promotion given rumours about a reshuffle.” But I understand the dinner was arranged weeks ago, part of a tradition he has maintained since 2011.

A Tory source, however, pours water on the suggestion of any movement: “There isn’t a reshuffle, let’s put it to bed. It is not going on, the idea is nonsense. It’s just not going to happen. Kemi is very happy with her top team.” They pointed to Badenoch’s leadership, new policies, and Nick Timothy’s arrival in the shadow cabinet as evidence of renewal. “Kemi has massively changed the party under her new leadership,” they added.

Both Stride and Philp are regularly in the top three of ConservativeHome’s members’ poll, with them coming second and third respectively at last publication.

Even at last night’s Winter Ball at The Peninsula hotel, Badenoch spoke warmly of “the team”, namechecking Stride and Helen Whately on welfare savings, and praising Claire Coutinho and Andrew Bowie for fighting for British jobs in energy.

Still, the question remains: how to balance experience with renewal. For a leader promising a fresh start, there is a sense that too much of the old guard lingers at the top. As one attendee at Badenoch’s lunch put it: “The mood is different. Things feel positive. But we need to look like we’re renewing – not just talk about it.”

Another framed it more philosophically: “Fresh is what Conservatives should always be. Things should be better tomorrow than they are today. That’s the Tory way.”

Whether Badenoch can pull off a Ford-style turnaround – rescuing and rebranding a damaged political entity – is the real test of her leadership.

Director Simon Draper apparently put the hour-long documentary together with iPhone footage, having initially hoped to create a podcast centred around Miriam.

However, the candid footage was later used to create Miriam Margolyes Made Me Me, which will air on the BBC later this year, and explores the friendship between the two pals and collaborators.

Simon told the US outlet: “I thought getting Miriam Margolyes to make a podcast would be easy, after all, everyone’s doing them, but Miriam’s lifestyle is bonkers.

“In two years, we made just five episodes, but hanging out with her was life-changing. Mim’s a woman with strong opinions and a weak bladder, and I feel lucky to have been able to capture all the chaos and sparkle of the bravest, most honest person I know.”

Conor Boyle is a young conservative and unionist from Northern Ireland, an Oxford graduate, and now works in the financial services sector.

Civil service reform used to be a topic reserved for genuine political anoraks, and A-Level politics teachers, but if we want the country to succeed, it’s going to have to become an issue on all our lips.

The permanent system of government in the United Kingdom is often heralded as a model of good administration.

We’re told that the British model is the ‘Rolls Royce” Civil Service, capable of governing a vast global Empire and achieving some heroic feats. This is all very much in the past. And the issues with today’s civil service are the major roadblocks to a building a more successful, prosperous, efficient Britain. The are, to my mind, two serious problems. The first is the mentality and culture of our bureaucracy, and the second is the inability to do anything about it.

On the civil service themselves, without being impolite to our public servants, but I highly doubt many of the current crop would have made it in the days when Wellington or Disraeli were running the British Government. I have heard commentators from Tony Young to Dominic Cummings lay the decline in calibre of our public servants at the feet of the push to remove the aristocracy (who they argue felt a mitral burden of duty and service to the country) in favour of a merit-based system unveiled after the Northcote-Trevelyan reforms.

I’m not sure how much there is to this theory, I don’t propose to explore it further. My initial gripe is that, at the moment, we don’t have a meritocratic civil service, and culture turns away good, able, energetic young people before they reach senior positions. This is undoubtedly true. Seventy years ago, let’s say, the top graduates of our great universities would bite your hand off for a job in the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence, and many more government departments and agencies alike.

While may talented youngsters are, of course, still applying to become diplomats and what-not, it is no longer the case that the civil service attracts talent on a scale even close to the private sector. Consider that, a century ago, the type of young person being recruited for the likes of Stripe or SpaceX, seen a career in the Home Civil Service as having a greater level attractiveness to a private venture.

Now, it’s not even close.

Never-mind the super and futuristic companies mentioned above, the Civil Service can’t even compete with the relatively run-of-the-mill private sector jobs in London and the South-east. Part of this is money, of course (although, not if you subscribe to the argument about aristocrats and their love of service) but it’s also something deeper; the feeling that you’ll achieve something, be part of something special or important in a fast-paced private sector role; whereas in the civil service there is a perception – borne out by reality these days – that your job would be to push the pen and watch a managed decline.

Now, there will be a sort-of chicken and egg argument here about which caused which. Did the civil service stop attracting the best and brightest because Britain is no longer a great power, or did we stop being a great power because the talent intake dried up. The answer to that question I do not have, but I’m not sure that’s even the most important point.

The point is that the current civil service cannot hold a candle to its former self, and the country is suffering as a result. Readers who are alive in modern Britain will not need a reminder of this. Infrastructure projects don’t get built, or when they do, they’re very late and more costly than ‘anticipated’, the government can’t manage large data sets without losing some of it, there’s no joined-up or long-term thinking when it comes to procurement, the services provided are inefficient and the negotiating skill leaves a lot to be desired.

The reason for all of this, in my view, is the lack of a proper incentive structure. On the one hand, it appears nearly impossible to be dismissed from the civil service for not being very good, and there appears to be no consequences for catastrophic failure. On the other, there is neither the political will nor the public appetite to provide large rewards for a job done really well.

It seems to be an unfortunate truth that civil servants can fail upwards.

Doing the job, having held the very eminent position, is an achievement in itself. It’s the sort of London dinner party mentality that says, “ooh what an impressive title he’s got”. Despite the fact that the public have been broadly unimpressed by the performance of the NHS for the last ten or fifteen years, all permanent secretaries in the Department of Health leave with not only their generous pension package, but with a knighthood.

The gong, which ought to be awarded for having done something good, worthwhile or impressive, is merely a perk of the job, regardless of how well or badly the job is actually done. This is surely bizarre.

The other big problem is the political impossibility of changing any of this.

Any notion of substantial reform to the civil service is met with the howls of derision, and firm clutching of pearls.

The high-pitched screeches of “politicization” can be heard from all directions. To me, this is a sort of luxury belief that merely exists to ensure that entrenched interests aren’t disrupted by the will of the voters if they prove too radical. Just a few years ago I might’ve called that view a conspiracy theory, but I believe it’s as clear as day now. In the early twentieth century, a Labour government would’ve complained that the Whitehall mandarin was obstructing their programme, and the civil service was broadly a soft-Tory institution.

Today, the civil service would probably be described accurately as socially liberal, fairly internationalist/multilateralist and somewhat Keynesian in their economic philosophy. Obviously, this is painting with a broad brush, and I want to avoid the claim often made some on the right that the civil service is rabidly left wing or anything of the sort. I don’t think there’s much malign intent here, just a relatively common “do-gooder” attitude to the politics. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s a perfectly legislate world view.

The problem is that it stays constant in the heart of the British government even as the voters opt for a different direction of government from election to election. It is bizarre to me that “politicized” carries such weight as an insult, surely we want the officials implementing government policies to be invested in the policies’ success.

As such, I would be in favour of a new system which allowed ministers to appoint senior civil servants to oversee the implementation of the Government’s programme, including Permanent Secretaries. Minister should have trusted advisers who also believe in the mission they are carrying out. I believe there are lots of benefits that would come from this.

Firstly, I think the quality of our public discourse would be enhanced markedly because think tanks would be empowered and become a much more important institution in British politics. This is because, when a party is in opposition, the would-be political appointees in the civil service will not be employed by the state and so would take up roles in think tanked which are broadly aligned to their political masters’ tastes.

For instance, young, smart thinkers on the right would spend these years in the likes of the Institute for Economic Affairs, Adam Smith Institute, or the Centre for Policy Studies, building up the knowledge and intricate detail of policy and implementation. As the think tanks grow stronger with high calibre, passionate, intakes, their production of research, papers, memos will be strengthened. As such, on both sides, our politicians will be well-armed with the facts, arguments and intuition for all of the policy ideas that are floating around our political system.

Secondly, the state will be better run with outsiders and true believers being responsible for policy. Under this type of regime, civil servants could properly be held to account in front of Parliament, because the old rules would no longer apply. This means that those responsible for projects that go wrong can be dismissed forthwith. Most importantly, ministers will, for the first time in decades, be in control of their departments. Currently, as I see it, a Minister of the Crown is a glorified press secretary for their department who answers to the press and on the floor of the House of Commons. The tortured metaphor of “pulling the lever but nothing working” would be consigned to the dustbin of history, because ministers would be directing officials who are loyal to the Government’s policy programme. The institutional power base of the Civil Service, which is considerable to say the least, will be significantly weakened by the ability of a minister to appoint trusted confidants to positions within the command structure of a department.

It is always the political moderates in our society today – the Lib Dems, Tory wets and the New Labour crowd – who are most appalled by this idea. It’s the sort of people (and their voters) who stand to lose most from a government with a radical vision (in any ideological direction). Thus, the compliant about “politicizing” the civil service is one they make rather disingenuously. Currently, I would argue that the administrative state is akin to a Blairite think tank. The political bias of the current system suits them nicely. It’s not that they’re trying to protect a truly neutral system. What I’m proposing is to simply make the political bias more open and honest, so that no one is under any illusions or pretences.

It goes without saying that this more radical reform can only come after getting the basics right. Restore appointment and promotion based on ability alone, removing any quotas or requirement on the basis of immutable characteristics, looking beyond university graduates alone for top jobs, end promotion and pay policy based on seniority or length of service in favour of a performance-based system, and begin the long-overdue process of downsizing much of the Civil Service to reduce overmanning.

This is necessary, so that decisions taken by Governments are implemented without needless layers of bureaucracy and second-guessing by well-meaning officials. And when the policy is delivered, its success or failure can be judged, and decision-makers held to account. This is good for democracy. This is good for Britain.

David Rose is Policy and Research Director of the Free Speech Union.

 The Free Speech Union has long been concerned that the Government’s plan to issue an official definition of Islamophobia – or ‘anti-Muslim hostility’, as leaks suggest it has been re-named – will, if adopted, gravely threaten freedom of expression.

Announcing her appointment of a five person “Working Group” tasked to produce it in February last year, the then-Communities Secretary Angela Rayner insisted it would be non-statutory, and hence “compatible” with free speech rights. Our Director, Lord Young, disagreed, arguing it would lead to self-censorship and the restriction of lawful discourse by both private and public bodies. He also pointed out that discrimination and hate crimes against Muslims are already sanctioned by the civil and criminal law. Any definition would thus either be pointless, or it would threaten freedom of speech.

Such a definition is a longstanding demand made by Islamist organisations with which successive UK governments have had a policy of non-engagement, such as the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and Muslim Engagement and Development (MEND), thanks to the extremist views expressed by some of their leaders, such as support for Hamas and other militant groups.

However, as I point out in Anti-Free Speech Hostility: The Islamist Links of the Government’s Working Group on Islamophobia, an investigative FSU briefing published today, it turns out that all the Working Group members have had close links to Islamist individuals or organisations, including the Group’s Chair, the former Tory attorney-general Dominic Grieve KC.

In a letter to Angela Rayner in June, Young raised a further, worrisome issue: that although Rayner claimed that the Group had been chosen to reflect  “a wide range of perspectives”, four of its members had already expressed strong support for an earlier definition, that issued by the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims in 2018. Its somewhat indigestible text  – that Islamophobia is “rooted in racism and a type of racism that targets expressions of  or perceived Muslimness” – was widely condemned by liberal and feminist Muslims, who said it would be weaponised by authoritarians to prevent both criticism of Islam and the highlighting of issues such as the disproportionately Muslim heritage of members of child sex grooming gangs. No one on Rayner’s Group shares that view.

Grieve, the only member of the Group who is not a Muslim, wrote a supportive Foreword to the APPG’s 2018 report. In coming to favour an official definition, he appears to have changed his views to a significant extent, although he denies this.

Yet until 2013, Grieve made a series of strong statements about Muslims’ religious and political attitudes, claiming, for example, that Muslims were trying to change society in ways that were inimical to pluralist democracy. He argued then that what he termed “political correctness” and “identity politics” arising from multiculturalism posed a serious threat to free speech and civil society. He told me he regarded his past and present views as consistent, saying the linking thread was his desire to reduce Muslims’ alienation from public life. Nevertheless, it is a matter of record that he said nothing supportive of an official  definition until 2017, when he chaired a “citizens’ commission” on British Muslims in 2017.

Its report, The Missing Muslims, thanked the then-head of the MCB as a key adviser, while its consultative “Muslim leadership group” included further MCB and MEND luminaries – including Sahar al-Faifi, MEND’s organiser in Wales, who had blamed the London Bridge terrorist attack that killed 11 people on “pro-Zionists, pro-war individuals such as Robert Rosenkranz, Lord Ashcroft and Lord Kalms the owner of Dixons”. She had also tweeted support for Hamas.

The other Working Group members also have questionable links. Asha Affi, billed by Rayner as an “independent consultant”, stood as a council candidate for the far-left, Islamist-aligned Respect Party in 2010. For the previous five years, Respect’s highest-profile figure had been an MP for the borough where Affi stood — its sometime leader George Galloway, Saddam Hussein’s erstwhile admirer and  an outspoken defender of the Iranian and former Syrian regimes. He had also praised the Hezbollah terrorist group, saying in 2009 he wanted to “glorify” because it was “right to fight Zionist terror”.

Group member Akeela Ahmed has long suggested that discourse must be regulated by the state to protect Muslims from harm. In 2018, as Young noted in his letter to Rayner, Ahmed told the APPG that the Islamophobia definition it was then considering must have “legal power”, so that it could be “implemented by the Government and the police”.

Meanwhile Ahmed has for years worked closely with Miqdaad Versi,  the head of the MCB’s media monitoring unit, trying to block “Islamophobic” journalism. Last year she set up a new body that aims to engage with government, the British Muslim Network. Working with her was its then and current co-Chair, Qari Asim, a Sunni imam who was sacked by the last Tory government for attempting to restrict free speech after supporting protests against the film Our Lady of Heaven, which takes a Shia perspective on Islam. He has also cultivated relationships with Pakistani imams who support the death penalty for blasphemy and venerate the killer of the liberal former Punjab governor Salman Taseer, and arranged speaking tours for them in England.

Ahmed is also chief executive of the British Muslim Trust, a newly-established organisation that last July was awarded government grants worth £2.65 million by Rayner’s department – to assist victims of Islamophobia. This followed a campaign against the previous recipient of such funding, Tell MAMA, which was founded and led by Fiyaz Mughal, a fierce critic of Islamists. The campaign embraced critical articles in the left-wing Byline Times by Akeela’s husband Nafeez, and speeches in the Lords by another Working Group member, Baroness Shaista Gohir, who claimed – without adducing evidence – that Tory governments had “used” Tell MAMA to monitor extremists, not support victims of hate crime.

As for Gohir, in 2014 she posted tweets supportive of Hamas, and her son, who ran her parliamentary office until last year, claimed Israel fabricated evidence of the Hamas massacre of 7th October 2023. She too supported the APPG definition, and authored a report saying that to discuss the Muslim heritage of child sex grooming gangs is Islamophobic.

The last Group member, Javed Khan, runs Equi, a think tank that published a report last year arguing that “misinformation’” about Muslims should be combatted by the state.

In September 2025, together with Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s former first minister, Khan was one of two keynote speakers at the launch of the UK branch of an international organisation based in Turkey, the Muslim Impact Forum (MIF), which has close ties to the  Islamist regime of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. At the time Khan spoke, the MIF’s website had for months been featuring an interview with Asim Qureshi, the Policy Director of CAGE, the terrorist prisoners’ support group, who once described Mohammed Emwazi, the ISIS executioner better known as “jihadi John”, as a “beautiful young man”. In his MIF interview, Qureshi said he hoped to build support for destroying the “evil” state of Israel once and for all, since it “should not be allowed to exist”.

Meanwhile, Labour continues to haemorrhage support to the electoral umbrella group known as The Muslim Vote, whose leaders include key figures from the MCB and MEND. The Government is running scared: a TMV rival slashed Wes Streeting’s once huge majority in 2024 to barely 500, and as he noted in his published texts to Peter Mandelson, it is likely that Labour will lose both its seats in his east London borough, Ilford. Meanwhile in Gorton and Denton, TMV is backing the Green candidate, and its influence may prove decisive.

The cause of free speech faces a daunting battle.