From a trade unionist who attended the UAF conference. Islamist entryism in full effect.
Meanwhile the alliance with right-wing political Islam continues, now in the shape of the East London-based Islamic Forum of Europe, whose Azad Ali was “elected” UAF vice chair. No one on the left, as far as I know, suggests the IFE and its like are terrorists (I mention this because it’s a straw man Ali raised repeatedly – criticise us, and you must think we're al Qaeda) or that we should refuse to stand even with Islamists to physically defeat fascist violence. But the idea that the left should be building a political alliance with a group that has established a bigoted, reactionary and repressive political climate in the Bengali community of Tower Hamlets is astonishing.
http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2012/02/25/report-unite-against-fascism-conference-2012Ali has been exposed time and time again as an Awlaki supporting, far-right bigoted thuggish Jamaat-e-Islami affiliate with the Islamic Forum of Europe based in east London. He has threatened people who have called him out and his association for their politics, was the subject of the Dispatches documentary that dealt with the rise of the far-right Islamist group in the east end, is a straight up Sharia-ist who opposes democracy where it conflicts with sharia, and he is an Islamist hustler working to Jamaat-e-Islami ends in the UK.
Some details:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewgilligan/100060409/britains-islamic-republic-full-transcript-of-channel-4-dispatches-programme-on-lutfur-rahman-the-ife-and-tower-hamlets-the-full-transcript/So the organisation that seeks to confront far-right activism by the likes of the EDL and BNP has elected a far-right religious extremist as its vice chair.
Such a shame and so depressing that some parts of the British Left are still such gullible saps, even though there are people among them who know and understand the inverted perversion of allying with clerical extremists.
When EDL types say that the UAF are Islamist enablers, how do you repudiate it, when you actually enable them, and have a far-right clerical fascist as your vice chairman?
There is a difference between defending Muslims from direct action by far-right groups, and formally allying with Islamists. This sums up the tragedy of this section of the modern British left. Useful idiots.
Topic: Unite Against Fascism elect far-right Islamist as their vice chairman