A seminar to train British police officers about Islam used Brexit pioneer Nigel Farage and other Reform UK party figures in lessons on “prejudice” and racially aggravated crimes.
British police officers who attended the York and North Yorkshire Hate Crime Conference in 2025 were treated to a heavy-handed seminar in which delegates were taught that Islam is compatible with British values, that women are not oppressed by Islam, and that views expressed by mainstream British politicians should be legally actionable, according to footage leaked to a British newspaper.
The Daily Telegraph stated the presentation to officers was given by former cop, Abbas Najib, who now runs the Better Communities Bradford activism group, and that it was intended to bust “myths and misconceptions about Islam”. The session told the audience that “Muslims, the immigrant, the brown person” are scapegoated by society, while the problems are actually down to “the rich”, the report states.
Several prominent British politicians were used to illustrate hate crime, with top politicians now involved with Reform UK featuring heavily, among them Nigel Farage, Robert Jenrick, Suella Braverman, Michael Gove, and Matt Goodwin. Najib is reported to have said that if Islamosceptic remarks by such politicians had been said about Jewish communities instead, the politicians would have been arrested, and that the same approach should apply to scepticism of Islam.
Attendees were challenged to consider whether Nigel Farage speaking causes physical hate crimes to happen in real life, and to “draw your own conclusions”.
Further, it is stated that typed materials handed out to attendees stated that Islam is compatible with the recently coined modern British values, and that it doesn’t oppress women.
The revelations about the form of training given to some police officers on Islam and what is called Islamophobia may go some way to explain why it is that some British police forces appear to have become so proactive in pursuing not just criminal speech, but non-criminal “hate incidents” as well. A report from the Free Speech Union earlier this month revealed an enormous disparity in arrest rates between British police forces, with some arresting ten times as many people as others.
The footage published by The Telegraph also recalls a report published last week by Policy Exchange, blowing the whistle on what they said was an erosion of police impartiality by the spread of special interest staff networks, and particularly the association of Muslim police officers. This organisation is among those that have politicised policing, they claimed, stating it was pushing for terms like “Islamist” to be phased out by police because it drives “Islamophobia”.