.... A much needed debate on extremism has been tarnished by smears, innuendo and outright lies from a bevy of pseudo-experts who trade on the fact that the average member of the public cannot distinguish between an alphabet soup of acronymed Muslim groups – MCB, MAB, MAC, IFE, HT, Fosis and the rest.
To pretend that the pro-democracy Muslim Council of Britain, whatever its flaws, shares political or religious values with the pro-caliphate Hizb ut-Tahrir or the pro-Taliban Muslims Against Crusades is deliberately disingenuous.
And how do we define extremism or extremist views? In recent years the bar has been raised repeatedly. It is no longer enough to eschew violence or to participate in elections. In his Munich speech the prime minister included "equal rights regardless of race, sex or sexuality" in his list of non-negotiable British values: "to belong here is to believe in these things." [Mehdi Hasan, The Guardian] Read more
