From the Times – ‘Extreme’ groups cut from government relations invited to law review:
Groups banned from engaging with the government over Islamist extremism fears have been invited to feed into new laws on public order and hate crime in the wake of the Manchester synagogue attack, The Times can reveal.
At least three groups which have prompted concerns about extremism were invited to give evidence to a government-commissioned review aimed at “protecting communities from hate and intimidation”.
Documents seen by The Times show officials sent a “call for evidence” to groups including the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) and Friends of Al-Aqsa.…
The latter two groups, alongside the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign — which was also asked to submit evidence — were among the organisations behind some of the largest pro-Palestine demonstrations in Britain over the past year.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign?? Well, at least they haven’t asked the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (who they’ve finally decided to ban).
The founder of Friends of Al-Aqsa, Ismail Patel, was named in a government anti-extremism review as having “previously visited [then] Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza, [and] been filmed in 2009 stating, ‘We salute Hamas for standing up to Israel’.”
What on earth do they expect from a group called Friends of Al-Aqsa?
Claire Coutinho, the shadow equalities minister, said: “The government-commissioned review is actively consulting groups who were on the non-engagement list under the Conservatives because they push dangerous messages and have alleged links to extremist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.
“These are groups who weaponised our equality laws to push radical and divisive ideology and then attacked anyone who spoke out. It is extremely concerning that the review is seeking advice from those who have actively fostered division.”
Well yes.
The review by Lord Macdonald into public order and hate crime legislation was meant to clarify how Britain protects the right to protest while preventing disorder and keeping people safe. Instead, it has exposed a longstanding confusion in Whitehall about who represents British Muslims.
Its decision to invite evidence from the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) and the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) raises serious questions about the validity of assurances that the government does not formally engage with these organisations. The Labour leadership went to great lengths to reiterate that position to Sir Stephen Timms in January last year after he attended the MCB’s annual leadership dinner.
Yet this review invites the same organisations — whose values do not align with the modern sensibilities of western liberalism, free speech and fair play — to feed into a process that will shape policy that could affect the freedoms of fellow citizens.
In 2009, the government severed ties with the MCB after a senior figure reportedly backed Hamas. And let us not forget the MCB’s boycott of Holocaust Memorial Day, which lasted six years in the 2000s. Or that the former communities secretary Michael Gove described the MAB as the UK affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood as recently as 2024.
While the MCB and MAB’s positions may well have changed, the history of these organisations should make anyone think twice about including them in such a vital review. But sadly, it seems whoever put this list together has taken the easy option and let them in, so long as they tick the usual boxes around “diversity”.
Having spent much of my working life engaging various government departments on issues of hate crime, community cohesion and extremism, I recognise the pattern. Within parts of Whitehall, there is an instant lack of scrutiny as soon as religion is involved, with civil servants worried that difficult questions might “inflame tensions”. These concerns become a convenient way to shut down honest discussion. I learnt this the hard way, after writing to officials to highlight deeply divisive videos and content being distributed by Islamist groups, only to discover that Prevent co-ordinators, tasked with countering extremism, were regularly engaging with the very same organisations.
It taught me a vital lesson: when our institutions are driven by convenience, difficult truths are buried and real people pay the price. The continued lack of clarity on who the government does and does not engage with today should set off alarm bells for us all.
It’s the Blob again. Faced with the diversity requirement they reach for the nearest Muslim groups, without any scrutiny or consideration as to what these groups actually represent. Unfortunately, just as unions are largely now in the hands of activists, so Muslim groups tend to be in the hands of the most radical and uncompromising. It’s the way these things work.
And of course the same worry about “inflaming tensions” was precisely the reason why the grooming gangs were ignored for so long.
Mick Hartley 
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