Labour Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott has signed an open letter calling for rallies against Donald Trump and the #FreeTommy movement alongside Muslim activists representing organisations linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Published by the left-wing Guardian, the open letter claims “the racist right” are using protests against the imprisonment of anti-rape gang activist Tommy Robinson to reorganise, with “Nazi salutes and Islamophobia… at the centre of the mobilisation”.
The letter also claims that “Donald Donald Trump [sic] has played a major role in galvanising the racist right”, and that the signatories will “take to the streets for the Together Against Trump demonstration coinciding with his visit on 13 July [and] when Robinson’s supporters take to the streets again on 14 July, we will protest against them too”.
The letter’s first listed signatories are Diane Abbott and John McDonnell, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s closest allies and two of the party’s most senior politicians, and far-left trade union boss Len McCluskey.
Other shadow ministers, union leftists, and opposition backbenchers including David Lammy, Britain’s leading proponent of racial identity politics, fill out the list, alongside so-called “anti-racism” campaigners — and several Muslim leaders with controversial links and views.
The first listed is Talha Ahmed, treasurer of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) linked to the Muslim Brotherhood — proscribed as a terrorist organisation by many countries.
A Government report in 2015 observed that the Brotherhood “played an important role in establishing and then running the Muslim Council of Britain” and successfully carved out a relationship with the government of the day as something of an intermediary between the British state and the Muslim community.
Regular dialogue was suspended in 2009, however, after one of its office-holders signed a document asserting the “obligation of the Islamic Nation to regard the sending of foreign warships into Muslim waters [to] prevent the smuggling of arms to Gaza, as a declaration of war [which] must be rejected and fought by all means and ways”.
Another signatory was Mohammed Kozbar, chairman of the notorious Finsbury Park Mosque — revealed as having a senior member of the Hamas terror group’s political bureau among its trustees last year, despite frequent claims it has transformed into a “model mosque” since Kozbar took over from hook-handed bomb-maker Abu Hamza.
Kozbar was also describing himself as vice-president of the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) at least as recently as 2016.
He defended the MAB after the same Government report which linked the MCB to the Muslim Brotherhood labelled his group a “Muslim Brotherhood organisation”.
The MAB was described as being “dominated” by the Brotherhood in the report, which highlighted its association with the Federation of Islamic Organisations in Europe (FIOE) established by the Muslim Brotherhood in 1989.
It also noted that “MAB (like the MCB) have consistently opposed programmes by successive Governments to prevent terrorism”.
Kozbar himself was filmed in 2011 telling cheering crowds, “this time it will be the end of Israel, inshallah” during a street protest, and chanting “down, down Israel”.
The letter was also signed by controversial former RESPECT party leader Salma Yaqoob, who sat with her arms folded while fellow Birmingham councillors applauded Lance Corporal Matt Croucher, who had been awarded the George Cross for throwing himself on top of a grenade in Afghanistan to save his fellow Royal Marines.
Yaqoob has defended “the rights of those in Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq to resist the occupation of their countries”, and was accused of describing the 7/7 terror bombings as “reprisal attacks” by a council colleague.
Still, another signatory was Maz Saleem, who has insisted an ex-Muslim group should be banned from marching at Gay Pride.
Despite her candidacy for one of Britain’s Great Offices of State should Jeremy Corbyn come to power, Diane Abbott and John McDonnell are not strangers to extreme fringe views themselves.
Abbott has denounced Britain’s white majority as an ethnic group which “love[s] playing divide and rule”, and refused to apologise for a statement in 1984 that the Provisional Irish Republic Army terror campaign in Northern Ireland “is our struggle — every defeat of the British state is a victory for all of us”.
McDonnell, too, praised the terror campaign, which saw the IRA bomb school buses and Remembrance Sunday events, and assassinate thousands of police officers and members of the Armed Forces, saying: “The bombs and bullets and sacrifice made by the likes of Bobby Sands… brought Britain to the negotiating table.”
The IRA only ever represented a minority view in Northern Ireland, where a referendum on whether the Province should stay with the United Kingdom or merge with the Irish Republic in 1973 saw 99 percent of voters back Britain, on a turnout of 60 percent.
The full list of signatories is reproduced below:
Diane Abbott MP Shadow Home Secretary
John McDonnell MP Shadow Chancellor
Len McCluskey General Secretary, Unite the Union
Dave Prentis General secretary, Unison
Talha Ahmed Treasurer, Muslim Council of Britain
Mohammed Kozbar Chairman, Finsbury Park Mosque
Rabbi Lee Wax
Sabby Dhalu and Weyman Bennett Co-convenors, Stand Up To Racism
Ged Grebby Chief executive, Show Racism the Red Card
Richard Burgon MP Shadow Justice Secretary
Laura Pidcock MP Shadow Minister for Labour
Cat Smith MP Shadow Minister for Voter Engagement and Youth Affairs
David Lammy MP
Emma Dent Coad MP
Marsha De Cordova MP
Andrew Gwynne MP
Peter Hain Labour, House of Lords
Claude Moraes MEP
Julie Ward MEP
Jean Lambert MEP
Tim Roache General Secretary, GMB
Kevin Courtney NEU, Joint General Secretary
Mark Serwotka General Secretary, PCS
Dave Ward General Secretary, CWU
Matt Wrack General Secretary, FBU
Mick Cash General Secretary, RMT
Ian Lawrence General Secretary, Napo
Steve Gillan General Secretary, POA
Manuel Cortes General Secretary, TSSA
Mick Whelan General Secretary, Aslef
Kevin Maguire Journalist
Michael Rosen Poet
Salma Yaqoob
Roger Huddle and Red Saunders Founders, Rock Against Racism
David Rosenberg Author
Alan Gibbons Author
Dr Siema Iqbal Co-founder of Avow (Advancing Voices of Women against Islamophobia)
Julia Bard National Committee, Jewish Socialists’ Group
Claudia Webbe Labour party NEC and Islington councillor
Margaret Greer National race equality officer, Unison
Harish Patel National equalities officer, Unite the Union
Ian Hodson National President, BFWAU
Tony Kearns Deputy General Secretary (postal) CWU
Steve Hedley Deputy General Secretary, RMT
Jane Loftus Vice-president, CWU
Phyllis Opoku-Gyimah Executive Director, UK Black Pride
Shahrar Ali Home Affairs spokesperson, Green party
Maz Saleem Anti-racism campaigner/Stand Up To Trump
Kate Hudson General Secretary, CND
Lindsey German Stop the War Coalition
Kerry Abel Chair, Abortion Rights
Asad Rehman Executive Director, War on Want
Sam Fairbairn People’s Assembly
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