Signals / United Kingdom / Censorship
They Asked the Country. Then They Deleted the Answers
A Freedom of Information request by Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Timothy found that the UK government had deleted every response submitted during the consultation used to help develop its new definition of “anti-Muslim hostility,” originally called “Islamophobia.”
That is the claim posted on 2 September by @visegrad24. The public, the post says, cannot see who took part or what they told the government.
The official record is not shy about the consultation existing. The Working Group on Anti-Muslim Hatred/Islamophobia Definition ran a call for evidence from 12:01am on 16 June 2025 to 11:59pm on 20 July 2025. On 9 March 2026 the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government published a non-statutory definition. The government page says this:
“The Working Group undertook a significant evidence gathering exercise, including a Call for Evidence which informed their private advice, and forms the basis of the definition that the government is now adopting.”
Private advice. The basis of the definition. Then, according to the FOI reply as reported by the Telegraph and Conservative Post, the department said it no longer holds the individual responses.
“The department no longer holds individual responses submitted to the call for evidence.”
And:
“Given the volume of special category personal data contained within the responses, a limited retention period was applied.”
“Following completion of the analysis of the evidence received, individual submissions were disposed of in accordance with agreed retention arrangements for special category data analysis, under which identifiable personal and special category data is retained only for as long as requested to meet business need.”
The working group, on the government’s own page, is chaired by Dominic Grieve KC. The named members are Professor Javed Khan OBE, Baroness Shaista Gohir OBE, Akeela Ahmed MBE and Asha Affi.
The definition the government adopted is three paragraphs. The first:
“Anti-Muslim hostility is intentionally engaging in, assisting or encouraging criminal acts – including acts of violence, vandalism, harassment, or intimidation, whether physical, verbal, written or electronically communicated – that are directed at Muslims because of their religion or at those who are perceived to be Muslim, including where that perception is based on assumptions about ethnicity, race or appearance.”
It is non-statutory. It does not, the government says, change the criminal law. Ministers encourage organisations across the country to use it.
@visegrad24, citing the Free Speech Union, writes that members of the government group had links to the Muslim Council of Britain and to MEND, and that critics want to know whether either organisation helped shape the definition. That is the Union’s charge, as carried on X. I have not opened a document that settles it. What I have opened is a government page that says the call for evidence formed the basis of the definition, and a FOI reply that says the responses are gone.
They asked for evidence. They told the country it informed the definition. Then they said the file no longer exists.
Is this accurate — or do I have a detail wrong?
