Last weekend the far-right agitator Tommy Robinson led a rally in central London to claim that white Britons are under threat.
Robinson has long maintained that Muslims are invading Europe, that Islam is incompatible with the west and that any attempt to challenge talk of a Muslim takeover is an attack on freedom of speech.
Many agree with him. Nigel Farage's Reform UK, Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives and sections of the British media pump out anti-Muslim narratives.
Their analysis is informed by ignorance and sustained by lies and conspiracy theories. Neither Farage nor Badenoch is renowned for their religious literacy. They would struggle, if challenged, to articulate a coherent definition of Islamism.
But mainstream British discourse on Islam is on their side. Enter the Oxford academic Fitzroy Morrissey.
