A British campaign group has called on new Prime Minister Andy Burnham to include funding for mosque security in his flagship devolution plan.
As hate crime against the community is on the rise, frustration has grown with the slow pace of additional grants for Islamic places of worship.
Akeela Ahmed, chief executive of the British Muslim Trust (BMT), told The National mosques across the UK had experienced delays in obtaining security funding from the Home Office. Some reported waiting up to 18 months, with others denied funding without being given reasons why.
One proposal is to give mayors and councils responsibility to distribute funding. “There have been suggestions that if some of the money was devolved to local areas, if they have the capacity to develop funding, then that would also speed up the process,” Ms Ahmed said.
In an interview with The National, Ms Ahmed said delays were due to a backlog in the Home Office. “There’s a backlog, partly to do with capacity at the Home Office, to deal with applications, or the government's capacity more generally,” she said.
Some of the more severe examples involved mosques in Belfast that applied for additional funding but instead were targeted during riots last month when homes of Muslims and other ethnic minorities were set on fire. “Some of them had applied for Home Office funding, and they had been approved, but they were waiting for the resources to come in place,” Ms Ahmed said.
Local-level responsibility for funding would help develop relationships between mosques and authorities, she added, “It would also mean that you know there are local government, or local mayoral offices, that are in touch with the mosques, so they've got an understanding of who the mosques are and the issues they’re facing.
“That sort of local knowledge, outplace knowledge, will probably help mosques get the funding quicker.”
Mr Burnham has already spoken of giving mayors more money to invest in their cities but has not yet specified whether he will reform the allocation of protective funding for places of worship.
Mosques have been allocated £40 million ($53.1 million) for protection in 2026-2027, an year-on-year increase of £10.4 million.
There have been serious incidents across the country. A man was charged with terrorism-related crimes after allegedly stabbing worshipers outside a mosque in Edinburgh. Last year, a mosque was set on fire in Peacehaven, East Sussex.
The Home Office's application advice states that “detailed evidence of any hate crime incidents – for example, photos of graffiti or police reports” should be included, with descriptions of the impact on the community. It says applications “that do not include strong evidence or do not explain the risk clearly are unlikely to be successful”.
There have been at least 70 attacks on mosques in Britain since the start of the year, almost one every five days, the BMT says. The three “hotspots” for attacks are London, Greater Manchester and the West Midlands.
Ms Ahmed said an attack on a mosque in one part of the country has ripple affects across the UK. “You know something can happen … in Lancashire and there'll be people in the south of England, Muslim people in the south, who are really impacted by it and who are worried about going to the mosque,” she said.
Ms Ahmed said social media companies needed to do more to take down anti-Muslim posts from their platforms. “Social media companies really need to stop allowing misinformation and disinformation about Muslims or communities to spread in their platforms,” she said.
A survey by the BMT and the British Futures think tank found more than half (56 per cent) of Muslims in the UK experienced prejudice last year, though three quarters (76 per cent) felt the UK was a good place to live. Almost one in six (16 per cent) of British non-Muslims believed it was not possible for Muslims and non-Muslims to live together, while 57 per cent believed it was. “The people who had more contact with a Muslim were more likely to have positive views or to be allies,” she said. “Those with entrenched hostile views tended to be people who hadn't really met or spoken to a Muslim.”
