You can’t win with these people.

(Reuters) – Muslim groups accused the British government of copying the language of the far right on Monday and of stoking Islamophobia after ministers wrote to imams asking them to explain to Muslims how Islam is compatible with being British.

In a letter to over 1,000 imams last Friday, Eric Pickles, the minister for local government and communities, asked them to explain to Muslims how Islam can be “part of British identity”, arguing they had a duty to do more to fight extremism and root out anyone preaching hatred. Muslim groups said the letter unfairly singled them out.

“The letter has all the hallmarks of very poor judgment which feeds into an Islamophobic narrative, which feeds into a narrative of us and them,” Tahla Ahmad of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) told Sky News.

The row, which underscores tensions between the government and Muslims, comes as security forces warn an attack on Britain by Islamist militants is highly likely. Jews and Muslims say they are fearful, for different reasons, after the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris. Harun Khan, deputy secretary general of the MCB, said his organisation would be writing to the government to complain.

“Is Mr Pickles seriously suggesting, as do members of the far right, that Muslims and Islam are inherently apart from British society?,” said Khan. Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, said the letter was patronising, factually incorrect, and “typical of the Government only looking at Muslims through the prism of terrorism and security.”