Behind the language of “public safety” and “national security,” a raft of draconian laws has quietly transformed the UK into a surveillance state — one where the right to speak, assemble, and challenge power is being eroded in plain sight, writes Juveriah Alam.
Last week, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced that the UK government will be providing £10 million in additional funding to “strengthen security at places of worship” to protect British Muslims. The announcement was swiftly met with a predictable backlash from the right.
Amid growing anti-Muslim sentiments across Britain, it seems strange to make such a bold announcement at this time, especially since it won’t help tackle anti-Muslim hatred at all.
The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) welcomed the pledge, but emphasised that the government wasn’t doing enough to tackle the root causes of Islamophobia. In a tweet posted on X, the MCB stated that the government “appears to have its head in the sand” about what is driving much of the hatred.
Indeed, the gesture is akin to putting a plaster on a gaping wound. Online, Islamophobia is rife. The billionaire owner of X, Elon Musk, has clear white nationalist leanings and routinely demonises ethnic minorities, while paying Tommy Robinson’s legal fees. It also appears that Musk has manipulated the algorithm on X to amplify Islamophobic accounts, and programmed Grok with anti-Muslim biases. There has been no condemnation from anyone in Labour’s cabinet.
All the while, the Labour government has done everything it can to show its contempt for Muslim life by supporting the genocide in Gaza.
Let’s be clear: Starmer knows he has lost the Muslim vote for the foreseeable future. There’s no going back from that. So why is he seemingly trying to appease Muslims with this £10 million additional funding, while risking so much vitriol from the far right? The answer is simple – it’s the establishment’s favourite divide-and-conquer strategy.
Subscribe to our newsletter and stay updated on the latest news and updates from around the Muslim world!
Divide, rule, censor and surveillance
I believe this whole scheme serves as bait for the far right. Our Labour government is deliberately provoking the far right in this country to become incensed with rage in the hope that they start rioting again. Knowing how tense divisions currently are, of course the government knew how this news would be taken.
Simply, our government seeks to create further unrest in order to justify imposing more draconian laws and ultimately make our country less free.
It cannot be a coincidence that on the very same day as this announcement, Prime Minister Starmer made a total of three posts endorsing digital IDs, even claiming that they have “the potential to transform our day-to-day lives.”
Far from the unifying force it promised during the 2024 general election, this government appears to be pitting the left against the right, immigrants and Muslims against white natives, and protesters against police — all while cloaking its authoritarian ambitions in the rhetoric of “public safety” and “social cohesion.” The result is a fractured nation, primed for ever-tighter controls that benefit the elite at the expense of the people.
The Public Order Act 2023 and the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 are draconian relics from the Conservative era that Labour has not only failed to repeal but actively defended in court. And peaceful demonstrators feel the brunt of this.
These laws empower police to shut down protests on vague grounds of “serious disruption” or “noise,” leading to over 1,000 arrests in 2025 alone — disproportionately targeting pro-Palestine marches and climate activists on the left, while anti-immigration rallies on the right are labelled “far-right extremism” and met with overwhelming force. Of course, I don’t believe that pro-Palestine protests are in any way equivalent to fascist marches — but labelling them as “extremists,” a politicised subjective label thrown around far too often, only serves those who support draconian counter-extremism laws like Prevent.
Police state
I do believe that this is a calculated provocation. By allowing, and even encouraging clashes between ideological opponents, the government manufactures chaos that justifies further crackdowns. The Online Safety Act 2023 is now ramping up enforcement with fines for “harmful” content and probes into unmoderated platforms.
This has sparked a free speech crisis, with arrests for social media posts deemed inflammatory — often selectively applied to silence right-wing voices on immigration while left-leaning critiques of Israel face similar scrutiny.
The proposed Crime and Policing Bill 2025, with its “respect orders” and expanded facial recognition, takes this further, potentially criminalising everyday complaints as “anti-social behaviour.”
Meanwhile, draft sentencing guidelines exacerbating “two-tier policing” and seemingly harsher penalties for right-wing speech stoke resentment.
Combined with economic hardship caused by welfare cuts, it fosters even more division in a society which currently feels like a tinderbox.
I believe this polarisation is engineered to divide and rule. The left is demonised as “woke extremists,” while the right is branded “racist thugs” for questioning mass migration policies. All the while, our government slips in surveillance expansions like mandatory digital IDs and new-born DNA sequencing, framing them as necessary to combat the very unrest they ignited.
But there’s an opportunity here. Muslims might be able to unite, in some respects, with genuine voices on the right — not the fringe elements peddling hate, but the principled conservatives who champion family values, economic self-reliance, and resistance to state overreach — values that resonate deeply with Islamic teachings of justice, community, and sovereignty under God.
Muslims should reject the £10 million for extra security as a superficial gesture that distracts from deeper issues, serving as a tool to buy compliance. The white working class are not our enemy. Our enemies are the establishment elites who thrive in a divided society, where the poor are made poorer while they fill their pockets with profits, bonuses, and unpaid taxes.
Once we break down the artificial barriers of left and right, we might finally see how we have all been manipulated to hate one another.
It sounds idealistic. Maybe it is possible — or maybe these divides are irreparable. But it cannot hurt to make the effort to talk to one another and have some difficult but civilised conversations.
