Non-Muslim officers and staff at West Midlands Police have been invited to fast during Ramadan as an “act of solidarity” with their Muslim colleagues.
The invitation has come from the West Midlands Association of Muslim Police, which for several years has asked colleagues of all faiths and backgrounds to give up food and drink for a single day. Money that would otherwise have been spent on meals is donated to charity, with the most recent fast raising funds for Children with Cancer UK.
The scheme was revealed by The Telegraph, which reported that non-Muslim employees elsewhere in the British public sector, including at local councils, take part in similar arrangements.
West Midlands Police said the practice helped officers grasp the “significance of Ramadan” for Muslim residents in one of the most diverse parts of England. A force spokesman said participation was entirely a matter for individual officers and staff.
Papers obtained through freedom of information requests show the force cited in New Forest council diversity training as an example of best practice on inclusivity. A memo circulated to councillors noted that “increasing numbers of non-Muslim staff have taken up fasting each year”, and invited them to devise comparable measures of their own.
Shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy described the encouragement of non-Muslim staff to observe Ramadan as “wholly inappropriate”. He argued that expectations should be uniform across the service and called for the abolition of the Public Sector Equality Duty, which requires public bodies to weigh equality considerations in their decisions.
Andrew Fox, a senior associate fellow at the Henry Jackson Society think tank, said the judgment of the force was “increasingly open to question”. He linked the initiative to earlier controversies, among them the exclusion of Israeli football supporters from a fixture in Birmingham.
West Midlands Police advised Birmingham City Council Safety Advisory Group to bar Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from a UEFA Europa League match against Aston Villa on November 6, 2025. The intelligence underpinning that advice was later found to be flawed.
Chief constable Craig Guildford retired on January 16, 2026 after apologising to MPs for incorrect evidence, including a denial that generative artificial intelligence had been used in compiling the case for the ban. A watchdog report concluded the force had sought only material supporting the outcome it wanted.
Other critics of the fasting scheme have questioned how effectively front-line officers can carry out their duties while going without food and water for extended periods.
Ramadan is a month of prayer and fasting from dawn until sunset, marked by Muslims across the world.
