No, Labour has not said it will introduce blasphemy laws for those criticizing Islam

Context 

On June 16, 2024, Tommy Robinson, the former leader of the anti-immigration group the English Defence League, posted a video on X (archived here). The video commences with a clip of Labour leader Keir Starmer speaking with London Mayor Sadiq Khan, discussing contributions Muslims have made to society in Britain. This interview snippet was edited together with a series of news clips covering violent incidents from the U.K., with Robinson claiming in the caption: "Here's some of the contributions of Muslims he speaks of." 

Robinson also claims in the accompanying caption that Keir Starmer "pretty much confirmed" he would "bring in blasphemy laws for anyone criticizing Islam." By June 30, 2024, this post had received over half a million views and had spawned countless similar posts on X, both with and without the appended video (archived here, here, and here.) 

Soon after Robinson's original post, an identical post began circulating on Facebook (archived here), garnering thousands of views.

In fact

We found the footage of the original interview between Starmer and Khan on YouTube. This short interview primarily centered around explaining how Muslims celebrate Eid but did have a short interlude about Islamophobia. The extent of this discussion is transcribed from the video below: 

Starmer: "One of the things that is coming up over and over again is Islamophobia. Well, you can see the stats. You can see the numbers rising, particularly since October 7. Although we shouldn't fall into the trap of thinking that before October 7 this was all heading in the right direction. It's been far too high for far too long. Clearly, we need to just say over and over again Islamophobia is intolerable. It can never, ever be justified. And we have to continue with a zero-tolerance approach. I think there's more we can do in government. There's certainly stuff online which I think needs tackling much more robustly than it is at the moment."

Khan: "What I'm hoping, Keir, is your experience as a prosecutor means you'll be thinking about the strategy we can use against those who break the law." 

Starmer: "It's a massive impact on people and their lives, their feelings about being able to walk around their own communities, their streets, their places of work or wherever it may be. It is certainly not low level. It really, really impacts people. I've seen so many cases for myself." 

During the interview, Keir Starmer does not mention introducing blasphemy laws to prosecute those criticizing Islam. Blasphemy laws are religious laws that prevent inappropriate behavior around something considered sacred. Great Britain has no blasphemy laws. They were abolished in England and Wales in 2008 and have since been abolished in Scotland. 

Legislation regulating all manner of hate speech, which could include Islamophobic hate speech, is already in place in the U.K. Hate speech is regulated by the Racial and Religious Hatred Act of 2006, which defines it as publicly spoken or published words that are threatening to a religious or racial group or that intend to "stir up religious hatred." It does not cover criticism of Islam.

Starmer has not announced plans to introduce new blasphemy laws to regulate criticism of Islam in any other interview, and it is not stated in the Labour Party manifesto. 

Logically Facts contacted the Labour Party to clarify whether Starmer had any plans to introduce such legislation and will update this article if we receive a response.

Claims about Labour's intention to pass blasphemy laws of this time originate from late February 2024, when Lee Anderson was forced to step down from his position as Conservative whip for claiming that Khan was being controlled by "Islamites." In the wake of this, the Labour Party's Code of Conduct surrounding Islamophobia came under scrutiny, as the party uses the definition of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims (APPG), defining it as "a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness." This story gained further attention after news outlets reported that an allegation of hate speech against Anderson was filed with the police regarding this incident. Anderson was not charged.

The verdict

Blasphemy laws were abolished in England and Wales in 2008 and later abolished in Scotland. Starmer has not announced any plans to resurrect such legislation or apply it to criticism of Islam. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.

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