APPALLING!

 Police were lectured about Farage in Islamophobia talk.

Training session compared Reform UK leader’s doubts about Islam’s compatibility with British values to a racially aggravated offence.

Craig SimpsonShow biography

Published 29 September 2026 6:00am BST

North Yorkshire Police officers were asked to consider the ‘harm’ done by Nigel Farage Credit: Getty Images/Dan Kitwood

Police officers were lectured about Nigel Farage in a publicly funded talk about Islamophobia, The Telegraph can reveal.

Officers at a hate crime conference attended training sessions that compared the Reform UK leader’s opinions, specifically his doubts about the compatibility of Islam with British values, to a racially aggravated offence.

The North Yorkshire Police officers were asked to consider the “harm” done by Mr Farage, and then told that the politician would be “locked up” if he were similarly critical of Jewish people.

The lecture was part of a training programme titled Project Unity, which The Telegraph understands has also been presented to students, council staff and civil servants responsible for the counter-extremism Prevent programme.

It also took issue with criticism of pro-Palestine “hate marches” levelled by “people like Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick” – both Reform MPs – and concerns about Muslim integration raised by Matthew Goodwin, a former Reform parliamentary candidate.

Police have been repeatedly criticised for failing to adopt a sufficiently robust stance on Islamism and anti-Semitic abuse.

Last week, Policy Exchange, a Right-wing think-tank, revealed that the National Association of Muslim Police had published papers defending Hamas and describing terms such as “Islamist” as Islamophobic.

Abbas Najib, a former police officer who is now the chief executive of Better Communities Bradford, gave the talk 

The Project Unity training was delivered by Abbas Najib, a former police officer and now the chief executive of Better Communities Bradford, a charity.

Since 2019, the charity has received £490,000 in public funding from the National Lottery Communities Fund, including a £35,000 grant to roll out Project Unity, which covers training sessions that include “media and political narratives” and “myths and misconceptions about Islam”.

In 2025, the latter session was delivered for free to North Yorkshire Police officers at the York and North Yorkshire Hate Crime Conference.

Attendees were shown a 2024 interview with Mr Farage in which he warned that “growing numbers of people do not subscribe to British values”, going on to say that this cohort included Muslims and attendees of pro-Palestine marches in London.

The Reform leader then cited a survey published by the Henry Jackson Society that found 46 per cent of British Muslims supported Hamas.

After that, attendees were asked to “think about the relationship” between Mr Farage’s statements and a hate crime offence that took place in 2024. They were shown footage of a man racially abusing a Muslim bus driver.

They were then told to “draw your own conclusions” about the Reform leader, and asked to “think about whether this commentary has any influence on something like this”.

Attendees of the conference were told to ‘draw your own conclusions’ about Mr Farage regarding things he had said 

Mr Najib said to the audience: “Ask yourself, who is going to get into trouble between those two gentlemen? And who did the most harm?”

He added: “Sitting in a national news studio and saying ‘Jews hate Britain’. He’d be locked up before he left the studio, and too right too.”

The lecture made the case that Muslim values are compatible with British values, in particular the official list pulled together under David Cameron’s government, which included a belief in democracy, the rule of law, respect and tolerance, and individual liberty.

Written material that accompanied the training also claimed that women were not oppressed by the stipulations of Islam.

Footage of GB News presenter used

The session also said pro-Palestine marches were “protesting genocide”, and Mr Najib complained that they were labelled “hate marches” by “mainstream, high-profile politicians” such as “Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick, Michael Gove”.

One of Mr Jenrick’s most prominent interventions about the issue came before his defection to Reform. Then in the Conservative Party, Mr Jenrick raised concerns about members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a group that hopes to establish a global caliphate, chanting “jihad, jihad” close to one of the marches in 2023.

Robert Jenrick raised concerns about chants of ‘jihad, jihad’ by members of Hizb ut-Tahrir

The talk used footage of Mr Goodwin, a GB News presenter, and the leader of Reform’s student wing, hosting a TV segment on British values. He presented a YouGov survey that found more than half of Britons believed Islam was not compatible with British values.

This was contrasted in Islamophobia training material with a section claiming that the specific teachings of Islam were compatible with British values, including a belief in democracy and religious tolerance.

The training also defended immigration more broadly, and claimed that “Muslims, the immigrant, the brown person” were scapegoated for a flatlining economy, when it was in fact “the rich”.

‘One standard is applied to everyone’

The training – which is targeted at authorities handling hate crimes and counter-radicalisation – can be revealed after concern about the application of the law by police forces across the UK.

Earlier this year, Stephen Gray, a retired police officer, was fined for sharing posts online that were critical of Islam.

Mr Najib defended the need for training on the issue of Islamophobia and misconceptions about Muslims.

Mr Najib, seen here giving a talk, says Project Unity exists to ‘reduce anti-Muslim hostility’ 

He said: “Project Unity exists to reduce anti-Muslim hostility and strengthen trust between communities. We work with as wide a range of groups and organisations as possible, from councils and police to colleges, charities and community groups, to help them understand how prejudice takes hold and how public language can feed it.

“Statements made on national platforms reach millions, so the workshop looks closely at the words themselves and how they land.

“Participants consider how the same words would be heard if they were said about Jewish people, black people or any other minority community, so that one standard is applied to everyone, whoever is speaking and whatever their politics.

“That same standard means we challenge generalisations wherever they appear, including the labelling of voters as racist. As a charity, our role is to bring people together, not to take political sides.

“Since the riots of 2024, more organisations have recognised the need to address anti-Muslim hostility and build trust within communities. The training delivered through Project Unity is one of the ways we help them meet that need.”

DT.