The Evidence Wasn't Deleted. So Publish It
For months, the government's answer to who shaped its new definition of anti-Muslim hostility was simple: the evidence was gone. It never was.
Will Garton, director general at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, has confirmed in writing that more extensive searches, including technical work by departmental IT specialists, found that "the underlying Call for Evidence response dataset is still held on Departmental systems." Nick Timothy was first told the material wasn't held. He kept pushing. The department eventually discovered that it was.
This isn't some incidental pile of correspondence. The government's own published account calls the working group's evidence gathering "significant" and says the Call for Evidence "forms the basis of the definition that the government is now adopting." If this evidence underpins a definition ministers want organisations across Britain to use, the public has an obvious interest in knowing who submitted it and how it shaped the outcome, personal data protected where the law requires.
Questions about the process predate the dataset reappearing. Rayner appointed Dominic Grieve to chair the supposedly independent group despite Grieve having written the foreword to the 2018 APPG report proposing the earlier Islamophobia definition. Akeela Ahmed, a panel member, had publicly championed that same definition. Harder to find among the five members is any voice for the free-speech or secularist case. Sir John Jenkins, a former ambassador the group approached, refused to take part, believing its direction already appeared predetermined.
There's also a question ministers haven't properly answered. In June, James Cleverly asked specifically whether MEND, CAGE, the Muslim Association of Britain or the Muslim Council of Britain had submitted written evidence. The government replied that the consultation was open to everyone, that the department hadn't engaged with those groups, and that the working group hadn't met them. Cleverly hadn't asked who they'd met. He asked who had submitted evidence.
That distinction matters. An organisation doesn't need to sit across a table from Grieve to shape an open consultation. It only needs to send a submission. That alone doesn't prove the process was captured, even though it might look that way. It does mean transparency matters more, not less, and the records now survive to provide it. Publish the submissions, redact what the law requires, and let the public see who tried to shape this definition.
The deeper problem goes beyond Islamophobia. A department built national policy on what it calls a substantial evidence exercise. When an opposition MP sought the material, officials said it wasn't held. Only further pressure and a forensic search found it was. Garton's letter says ministers weren't involved in handling or retention decisions, so there's no evidence yet that ministers ordered anything concealed. There's every reason to ask how an official FOI process missed evidence important enough to justify government policy.
The government can no longer claim disclosure is impossible because the evidence vanished. Its own director general confirms it survives. If the process was as rigorous as ministers maintain, publishing it should only prove that. If it wasn't, the public deserves to know that too.
The question was never really where the evidence went. It's why, now the government admits it still has it, the country still isn't allowed to see it.
"Rayner appointed Dominic Grieve to chair the supposedly independent group despite Grieve having written the foreword to the 2018 APPG report proposing the earlier Islamophobia definition."
It is becoming apparent that if authorities had arrested Joshua Kerry, after an incendiary device was pushed through Nigel Farage's letterbox, Ann Widdicombe would most probably be alive today.
A photo, alleged to be of Kerry pushing the device, which exploded in the Reform leader's porch, is thought to be behind this week's charge against him, of preparing acts of Terorrism against Farage.
It's always too little, too late.
Unless you're wearing a balaclava, you're going straight in the slammer..
Well done Miliband you creep, in July I posted that friend's of mine opened a restaurant and their first energy bill from EDF was £690.33 + £490.00 in climate change levies, when they called EDF they said 'its not our fault its the governments requirement call them!
They did and wrote TWICE and you failed to respond.
Well you will be happy to hear they have as of yesterday decided to close. Is this Labours answer to growth.
I am angry because they are friends who put everything into setting this up, and angry that Labour is killing the country with the fiscal ability of a new born child 😡
@reformparty_uk
Labour make an art out of misplaced priorities.
Now, urgent renovations to military housing that had £800 million earmarked for it has been put on hold.
Now thousands of families will be stuck in dilapidated housing until at least the end of the decade.
This is an abhorrent decision when you look at other government spending and will hopefully see the backlash it deserves.
One advocate has said prisoners wouldn��t be expected to live in the conditions some service personnel and their families are having to endure.
That is a totally damning comparison - Healey must resign.
Shame on him and Burnham.
“I want the Reform voters back"
This just illustrates her complete lack of awareness🙄
She has no idea why over 3 million Tory voters became Reform voters.....she can "want" to her heart's content.
Surely even the Tories must have more talented politicians than this! Pathetic!🤮
The EU has introduced more than 25,000 new regulations since Britain left. If Burnham succeeds it will signal the end of Britain. Freedom of movement, huge expenses and thousands and thousands of new curbs on trade and industry will mean Britain will not be able to survive. https://t.co/geAQhXufZW
Islamist who was allowed to stay in UK after entering illegally, faces prison after joining ISIS and being found with 'suicide bomb manual'. It begs the question, how many potential terrorists are hiding in plain sight?
https://t.co/PmgRsaJUok via https://t.co/yKLuHcxeAT
All Mad Red Ed is after, are votes from the Muslims & those leftists who have deserted to the Greens aren't you @Ed_Miliband
I sincerely hope you & your party get decimated at the next GE, as you only care about power you Fabian whore!
Labour’s “Islamophobia” definition was almost certainly influenced by extremists.
They covered it up and said all the evidence was deleted.
I forced them to investigate.
Now their top official says ministers lied, and they do still have records of it.
There is zero excuse not to publish it.
🚨📰 Since Friday over 1500 illegal migrants have crossed the Channel and received the Red Capet treatment from Labour. More are expected to arrive today.