Zara Mohammed calls for review of Downing Street’s non-engagement policy with Muslim Council of Britain

Mohammed, whose tenure as MCB leader is due to end in January, said she was optimistic that the government would ‘get its act together’. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

The head of the Muslim Council of Britain has called for an explanation and a review of the government’s policy of non-engagement with the body after her appeals for contact during the summer riots were ignored.

Zara Mohammed, who was elected more than three years ago as the MCB’s youngest and first female secretary general, said there had been a “quite shocking” lack of contact with the new government at a time when mobs were targeting Muslims and mosques.

The MCB had been “heavily engaged” with Labour’s shadow cabinet when the party was in opposition, including a meeting in 2021 between Mohammed and Keir Starmer where they discussed “the importance of engaging with Muslim communities”, she said.

Downing Street then ignored attempts to discuss the dangers being posed to Muslim people during the riots, Mohammed said, even as Northern Ireland’s first minister, Michelle O’Neill, and senior police officers held talks with her in Belfast.

Mohammed, 33, whose tenure as MCB leader will end in January, said she hoped ministers would now review the government’s “baffling” approach to the UK’s largest Muslim umbrella group, which has more than 500 affiliated members including mosques, schools and charitable associations.

She said: “There’s been no official communication from government since the election, and when the riots happened, I guess that’s where we would have expected.

“We appreciated that, with any new government, they’ve got to settle in, and there’s got to be some time to work out [things]. There’s a lot of things going on in the country, economic downturns, we appreciate that.

“But I think what was really disappointing, and perhaps for many in the Muslim community, quite shocking, was no formal or meaningful engagement with the Muslim Council of Britain during a time when mosques and Muslims were being targeted by the far right in a terrifying way.”

The Conservative government had a policy of non-engagement with the MCB and in a statement to parliament on 1 August the Labour communities minister Alex Norris disclosed that there had “been no change to HMG [his majesty’s government] policy and there are no plans for ministers to meet with the Muslim Council of Britain”.

The new government has not expanded on its approach but the reason given to parliament by Rishi Sunak’s administration for its policy of non-engagement was that “previous MCB leaders have taken positions that contradict our fundamental values and these have not been explicitly retracted”.

That statement was a reference to a row dating back to 2009 when the then MCB deputy secretary general, Daud Abdullah, signed a document known as the Istanbul declaration, which advocated attacks on the Royal Navy if it tried to stop arms for Hamas being smuggled into Gaza.

The then Labour government said it would have nothing more to do with the MCB unless Abdullah stepped down. He did resign and the MCB said the views expressed did not represent those of the body, leading to a re-engagement in the last year of Gordon Brown’s government.

Liberal Democrat ministers in the coalition government elected in 2010 also engaged with the MCB. Penny Mordaunt, when she was the Conservative paymaster general, had a meeting with Mohammed in 2021 but was heavily criticised in parts of the media, including the Daily Mail.

Mohammed said the MCB had since been “locked out”, although she added that policy had not been consistent, with the body providing a reference service for the appointment of Muslim chaplains by the Ministry of Defence until it was highlighted in a Daily Telegraph article last year.

Last week the deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, told the Commons that the government was “actively considering” its approach to tackling Islamophobia.

Mohammed said she was “optimistic” that the government would “get its act together”.

She said: “I think what I’m hopeful of is that the government will review the former position and will look at offering a position of clarity as to why [they are not engaging], and having a conversation with us to see, you know, what are the challenges; what are the blocks in 2024, not in 2009.

“Ultimately, talking to a national body is critical when it comes to national representative issues. That’s why we exist, because those mosques sign up to be an umbrella where we’ve had big political issues to talk about.

“We never claim to be the only voice for British Muslims. We claim to represent our bodies. But just as other faith communities have representative bodies, of course, we have one, and of course we want to vocalise on the policy issues, on national representation.”

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “The government engages regularly with faith communities. During the recent disorder, the minister for faith spoke to representatives of Muslim communities through numerous roundtables and visits to places of worship.”