Muslim Brotherhood under 'close review' for UK ban

Government confirms that extremist organisation could be barred under terror laws

Keir Starmer has said he will keep a potential ban on the Muslim Brotherhood under 'very close review'. EPA

The British government has put the Muslim Brotherhood under “close review”, with the prospect that it could be banned from the UK.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman has confirmed to The National that the extremist group, which seeks close ties to government bodies, was being considered for exclusion under terror laws.

President Donald Trump said last month that the US would designate some chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist organisations. The President said the step “will be done in the strongest and most powerful terms”. Mr Trump issued an executive order as a first step to his administration designating movement.

Separately, US politicians are pushing legislation that would go much further than Mr Trump's order, which does not target some branches of the Brotherhood, including in Turkey and Qatar, countries that historically have strong ties to the group.

Not long after Mr Trump's announcement, Keir Starmer told the Jewish News that group, was “under very close review”. The UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said on Tuesday that she was “deeply worried” about the risk of further atrocities in Sudan after being asked about the growing influence of Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, who were seeking to “deliberately foment extremism”.

Keir Starmer and the UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper. AFP

The Brotherhood is already banned in Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. This is understood to have led more of its supporters to head to the UK to escape the bans, but it has also led to greater calls to proscribe it.

In 2015 a review by David Cameron’s government found that affiliation to the group could be considered a “possible indicator of extremism”, though he decided against banning it. But it did find that people linked to the Brotherhood had supported terrorist acts such as suicide bombings by Hamas. He subsequently enacted measures such as refusing certain people entry to the UK, and monitoring charities linked to the Brotherhood.

A Downing Street spokesman told The National that it kept a number of groups under close review and that the Muslim Brotherhood would be “under consideration”, with the possibility of proscription under the government’s counter-extremism strategy if deemed appropriate.

Nigel Farage, the leader of the far-right Reform party, has previously said that if elected to government he would proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood as a terror group.

A statement issued by the Brotherhood after Mr Trump’s announcement said: “The Muslim Brotherhood has a clean record and a clear history and is not concerned with any accusations of terrorism.”

Grieve report

It is also clear that the UK government is unlikely to adopt an official definition of Islamophobia to protect Muslims from hate crimes.

Opposition to the move has grown over fears that it would introduce blasphemy laws via the back door, something Mr Starmer pledged on Wednesday was not on the cards.

During Prime Minister’s Questions he was asked by Graham Stringer, a Labour MP, whether he could give assurances that there “will be no introduction or reintroduction of a blasphemy law … by a non-statutory definition of Islamophobia?” “Yes, I can give him that assurance and it’s important that I do so,” Mr Starmer replied.

Shockat Adam, an independent Muslim MP, also questioned the Prime Minister, saying that “Islamophobia is real”, before asking why Labour’s promise of defining it had now “been dropped”. “Hatred in all its forms should be condemned by all of us in this House and that includes anti-Muslim hatred as well and we intend to act on it,” Mr Starmer responded.

With almost two in five religious hate crimes committed in Britain being directed against Muslims, there have been growing demands from the community for the government to introduce an Islamophobia definition as official guidance. Downing Street has not yet confirmed when its long-awaited report on an official definition of Islamophobia, drawn up by the former attorney general and Conservative MP Dominic Grieve, will be published.