A former head of the country's equalities watchdog has been suspended from the Labour Party over allegations of Islamophobia.
Trevor Phillips, who chaired the Equality and Human Rights Commission from 2006 to 2012, now faces an investigation and could be expelled from the party.
The Times reported he is being investigated over past comments including remarks on Pakistani Muslim men sexually abusing children in northern British towns.
He wrote in 2017: "What the perpetrators have in common is their proclaimed faith. They are Muslims, and many of them would claim to be practising. It is not Islamophobic to point this out."
The paper said many of his statements date back years but that Labour's general secretary Jennie Formby suspended him as a matter of urgency to "protect the party's reputation".
Mr Phillips rose to prominence as an anti-racism campaigner. In recent years he has clashed with critics over how to treat race in society - claiming the fear of being labelled racist is silencing frank debate.
The defiant campaigner refused to back down today, telling the BBC: "They say that I’m accusing Muslims of being different. Well actually that’s true. The point is Muslims are different.
“And in many ways I think that’s admirable.”
He pointed out that a cricket club in North Yorkshire turned down a £2m lottery grant because it did not want money derived from gambling.
BBC Radio 4's Today programme put to him that he was being "hypocritical" by making "generalisations" about Muslims while also condemning Labour's failure to properly tackle anti-Semitism.
He denied hypocrisy, saying: "You keep saying I make these generalisations.
"The truth is if you do belong to a group, whether it is a church or a football club, you identify with a particular set of values, you identify with something, and you stand for it.
"And frankly you are judged by that."
Mr Phillips was among 24 public figures who last year declared their refusal to vote for the Labour Party because of its association with anti-Semitism.
In a letter to the Guardian in November, the group said the path to a more tolerant society "must encompass Britain's Jews with unwavering solidarity" and said Jeremy Corbyn has "a long record of embracing anti-Semites as comrades".
Mr Phillips told The Times there was no suggestion that he has done anything unlawful and "no one inside or outside the Labour Party has ever suggested that I have broken any rules".
Writing in an opinion piece for the paper, Mr Phillips said: "If this is how Labour treats its own family, how might it treat its real opponents if it ever gains power again?
"It would be a tragedy if, at the very moment we most need a robust and effective opposition, our nation had to endure the spectacle of a great party collapsing into a brutish, authoritarian cult."
There was a row last year after Mr Phillips chaired an event at the Tory conference titled "Challenging 'Islamophobia'". He asked panellists for "30 seconds" each on their thoughts about Islamophobia in the Tory party and at another point joked: "I don’t know if I’m the only one here who’s been nominated by a UN body as the Islamophobe of the Year." Fellow panellist Peter Tatchell later explained the title had been awarded by an "Islamist group".
A Labour Party spokeswoman said: "The Labour Party takes all complaints about Islamophobia extremely seriously and they are fully investigated in line with our rules and procedures, and any appropriate disciplinary action is taken."
