The impartiality of British police forces has been undermined by the institutional collectivisation of special interest staff network groups, particularly the association which represents Muslim officers, a report from a leading think tank has claimed.
Amid waning trust in the ability or willingness of police forces in Britain to deliver impartial enforcement of the law, Policy Exchange has pointed to the more than 200 staff networks, which allow officers to congregate according to various characteristics, such as race, gender, sexuality, religion, or even social causes like veganism, as having politicised policing.
The think tank specifically focused on the National Association of Muslim Police (NAMP), which is supposedly intended to “support” Muslim police officers, but which Policy Exchange claims has extended its “activities and partnerships” to “range across a far wider policy agenda and are clearly highly contentious.”
The report cited a policy paper produced by NAMP in 2025 entitled “From Past Prejudices to Present Policies: Confronting anti-Muslim hatred and Promoting Human Rights,” in which the authors are said to have described Zionism as a manifestation of “anti-Muslim hatred, stripping Muslims of their humanity” while referring to the Israeli Defence Force as one of a number of “Zionist terrorist groups”.
The paper went on to claim that Israel’s military operation in Palestine to root out the Islamic terror group Hamas and rescue hostages following the October 7th terror attacks was akin to the Holocaust committed by Nazi Germany during the Second World War.
Conversely, the National Association of Muslim Police paper is said to have defended the Hamas terrorist group, which perpetrated the gruesome October 7th attacks. The paper said that “alarming and unverified stories about acts of violence”, such as beheadings, were intended to increase animosity towards Islam. The group further claimed that no child was murdered by the Islamist terrorists, asserting that the media was “falsely insinuating that [Palestinians] perpetrate atrocities against innocents”.
Yet, even the often Israel-critical Amnesty International has admitted that 36 children were killed during the 2023 attacks, which took the lives of around 1,200 people, including more than 800 civilians.
In addition to allegedly defending Islamic terrorists, Policy Exchange also noted that the National Association of Muslim Police was active in the apparent political exercise of attempting to enforce politically correct language when dealing with radical Islam.
A 2023 NAMP press release cited by the report proclaimed that terms like “Islamist” should not be used by law enforcement when dealing with terrorism, arguing that it reinforces “Islamophobia” and creates a “higher risk of Extreme Right-Wing radicalisation” in response while also spreading the “narrative that makes an association between Islam and terrorism, creating a greater risk of radicalisation amongst vulnerable Muslims.”
A separate paper produced by the group in 2023 cited “negative coverage in the media” and “negative feelings towards Muslim immigration or communities” as examples of “Anti-Muslim hatred”. It also warned that “microaggressions” against Muslims could include a “non-Muslim person telling a Muslim person that ‘racism and Islamophobia aren’t an issue in today’s society’”.
The activities of such groups are not merely confined to the national level; however, with Policy Exchange reporting that at least 20 regional police forces across the UK have a local Muslim Police Association.
The pressure from special interest groups on police forces has come with real-world implications, according to the think tank, which cited as an example the scandal over the decision by the West Midlands Police to prevent Israeli soccer fans from attending a match in Birmingham after pressure from local Muslim leaders, while citing fabricated claims from an AI chatbot to justify their decision, and actively downplaying the threat posed to the Israelis from the local Islamic population.
Policy Exchange called for fresh legislation to mandate impartiality among police forces in Britain, including specific requirements for chief constables, police officers, police staff, and the forces themselves. The think tank also argued that, given their risk of partiality, police forces should abolish staff networks outright.
Commenting on the report, former Police Inspector and Firearms Commander with the Metropolitan Police and founding member of the National Black Police Association, Chris Donaldson, said that “staff Networks have crept far from the role they were created for – that of providing internal support to their members.”
“When Staff Networks in policing publicly involve themselves in matters of policy, which are rightly the preserve of elected governments and ministers, those networks and their leaders are going way over the line.”
Former Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Baroness Falkner of Margravine, said that “the impartiality of our public services and, in this case specifically, the police. Too often, as this paper shows, we see staff networks straying into contested ideological, religious or political territory.”
“If the public no longer believe they can trust that the police will always operate according to that most fundamental of principles – to act without fear or favour – we would see risks to the rule of law itself.”