Calls are mounting for an independent review into Islamophobia in Britain’s Labour Party — a demand backed by Labour National Executive Committee (NEC) member Mish Rahman, the Labour Muslim Network, and daily socialist newspaper the Morning Star.

Making this same appeal, Labour MP Zarah Sultana has explained how the party’s policing of pro-Palestinian opinion, its contemptuous briefings about Muslim voters during the present Gaza crisis, its indifference to racist abuse directed at her and other Muslim MPs, and paltry support for religious observance in the House of Commons amount to a culture of Islamophobia. As she points out, all this substantiates Martin Forde QC’s remark that the party operates a “hierarchy of racism” — with the needs of Muslims near the bottom.

The demand for such an inquiry is smart insofar as it highlights Labour’s double standards. The party’s mechanical reply — “Labour is committed to tackling Islamophobia across society [and] will continue to robustly stand up for the rights of Muslims in our party” — contrasts with the near-continual handwringing by Labour MPs and the media during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, which yielded the Chakrabarti Inquiry into antisemitism (2016), the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) investigation into Labour’s processes in policing it (2020), and the Forde Report (2022), interrogating factionalism in these same processes.