You may have caught the headlines over the weekend which include ‘Muslim students back killing in the name of Islam’, and ‘Muslim students back Islamic killings’, or even ’1/3 of UK Muslim students back jihad’. But the best has to be ‘To beat extremism we must dissolve religious groups’!

With such ‘shock & awe’ inspiring headlines, I thought I’d read the report that triggered these sensational headlines.

The report commissioned by the Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC) is the embodiment of Islamophobia and the neo-con agenda of attacking Islam. Its director, Douglas Murray is on record as saying that Islamophobia is a ‘myth’ and his animosity towards Muslims and Islam is quite unmistakable if one simply reads the executive summary that is available on their website.

This ‘think-tank’ has the words ‘social cohesion’ in its name, yet fails to list perhaps one of the most positive findings, that over 75% of ‘Muslims’ surveyed said that religion did not play a part in who they choose to be friends with or that they have friends from all sorts of backgrounds. The lowest figure of 8% indicated that most of their friends were Muslims, but it did not categorically exclude non-Muslims from their circle of friends.

The nefarious intentions of Douglas Murray and the authors of this report is palpably evident simply by looking at the question asked about friendship to Muslim students and non-Muslim students.

Muslims are asked “Thinking about your university friends, which of the following statements comes closest to describing your social group” and they have the following options:

1. Most of my friends at university are Muslim, because I have more in common with them than I do with non-Muslims

2. Some of my friends at university are Muslim, but I have friends from all sorts of different backgrounds

3. Very few of my friends at university are Muslim; there aren’t many Muslims at my university

4. Very few of my friends at university are Muslim; I find I have more in common with non-Muslims

5. Religion is not an issue when I choose my friends at university

6. Not sure

Whereas non-Muslims asked the same question have the following choices:

1. Culturally my university friends and I are probably quite similar

2. I have friends at university from all sorts of different backgrounds

3. Not sure

Not only are Muslim students asked more questions, but they are worded in a specific way – in an attempt to perhaps bring about some findings which CSC can beat the drum of Islamophobia with. Why not offer the same options, just swap Muslim and non-Muslim as appropriate?

While we’re on the subject, if you wondered how the non-Muslim students answered, 42% said they were friends with similar people (i.e. non-Muslims) and only 55% said they have friends from all backgrounds. This is significantly less than that polled by Muslims who have more non-Muslim friends.

I am glad that the president of the NUS, Wes Streeting, came out strongly condemning this ‘social engineering’ piece of hogwash by stating “This is just another report by a biased, right-wing think-tank whose conclusions are drawn from an extremely limited number of students,” and “The CSC has an unhealthy obsession with Muslims and Islam”.

The truth of the matter is, Douglas Murray and his neo-con bandwagon have no interest with cohesion or integration – all they seek is the destruction of Islam and the capacity for Muslims to practice their religion, delivered by whipping up anti-Muslim and Islamophobic tendencies.

If they had any honesty or integrity, or believed their own stated policy for ‘social cohesion’ – surley they would have carried out a less agenda driven research and focused more on the positives. By just looking at one question shows how shoddy this report is, one hopes that most people will ignore this like the Policy Exchange report which forged receipts to help deliver its message.

Still there is some consolation, a report by the UN said that it was worried by “negative public attitudes towards Muslim members of society” in the UK!