Community Policy Forum
Policy Pledges 2024
Community Policy Forum have published our policy pledges ahead of the 2024 General Election.
Over the last two years, we have consulted Muslim communities and organisations through roundtables, surveys, and individual meetings to explore what matters to them.
In this process, we have developed these ten policy pledges laying out the key areas which we believe are essential in understanding the challenges facing Muslim communities in the UK.
Read the full list of policy pledges below
We encourage Muslim and civil society organisations to endorse any pledges to which they can give their support. It is through solidarity that we believe Muslim interests are best advocated for during this election period.
At the same time, we urge prospective parliamentary candidates to endorse and publicly support these pledges as a demonstration of their commitment to representing their Muslim and other minority constituents.
If you cannot commit to all the pledges, please endorse as many as you can.
Endorse our policy pledges here
View Candidates who have endorsed our pledges here
View Muslim Organisations that have endorsed our pledges here
Palestine
This is the deciding issue for many Muslims in this general election. The success of candidates with Muslim voters will be dependent upon their commitment to calling for a ceasefire, recognition of the state of Palestine, addressing UK complicity, stopping the sale of arms to Israel, and holding the Israeli government to account for evidence of genocide.
Islamophobia
Commit to proactively addressing the existence of structural, institutional, and public Islamophobia, both domestically and abroad, with the adoption of the APPG on British Muslims’ definition of Islamophobia being the first step in combatting this phenomena.
Education
Commit to accommodating and nurturing religious identities in an effort to foster socially healthy school environments, including through providing religiously and culturally sensitive counselling and support; tackling identity-based bullying; and proactive and meaningful parental consultation, particularly concerning issues such as the teaching of RSE.
Employment
Commit to implementing and monitoring programmes that introduce meaningful action plans aimed at tackling racial, religious, and disability based discrimination at all levels of recruitment, retention, and promotion, particularly concerning the structural inequalities faced by Muslim women.
Healthcare
Commit to commissioning research and implementing policies to specifically address Islamophobia and other structural inequalities facing minoritised communities across the healthcare system which impact them as both practitioners and as service users in terms of access, experiences, and outcomes.
Policing and the Justice System
Commit to addressing structural and institutional Islamophobia, misogyny, and racism within policing and the justice system, including the disproportionate application of policing powers on minority communities; accurately recording hate crime; and increasing diversity and cultural sensitivity across the justice system, including through mandatory unconscious bias training.
Security and Counter-terror
Commit to rejecting the new definition of extremism and its accompanying guidelines, as well as the overarching security structure within which this new policy is situated – specifically the language, logics, and operation of the PREVENT strategy.
Political Participation
Commit to protecting the rights of Muslims and others to use the tools of democratic participation to scrutinise government policies as a legitimate part of democratic engagement and executive accountability, including through rejecting the curtailment of protest rights, the Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill and other legislation designed to stifle legitimate activism in support of Uyghurs, Palestinians, Kashmiris, and other oppressed peoples.
Online Spaces and the Press
Commit to disrupting the monopoly of media ownership and creating new ownership and funding models to support independent public interest journalism; protecting BBC journalism from government interference; and ensuring that the principles of the Royal Charter are upheld through reinstating Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 and clarifying that the definition of a ‘recognised news publisher’ contained within Ofcom’s statutory codes of practice for online platforms encompasses only those regulated by a Leveson-compliant regulator.
Human Rights and Civil Liberties
Commit to protecting the UK’s human rights framework and reinforcing our international obligations by protecting the Human Rights Act 1998 and reversing the erosion of human rights and civil liberties contained in recent legislation, including the Safety of Rwanda Act, the Illegal Migration Act, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, and the Public Order Act, amongst others.
Economic Disadvantage
Commit to prioritising initiatives and public services designed to support and protect the most economically vulnerable in society, directing special attention to groups that are already disproportionately disadvantaged, including ethnic and religious minorities, women, elderly, and disabled groups.