Jack Straw: the great survivor

Thursday, 03 December 2009 13:19

Jack Straw, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, talks about electoral reform, the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war and responds to critics who claim he is “too close” to the Muslim Council of Britain and ‘soft on Islamism’ in an interview published in this week's New Statesman magazine.

Cowley observes, ‘If some moderate Muslims are critical of Straw, there are those among the pro-Iraq war left (you might call them former liberals mugged by reality) who think he has appeased Islamists, refusing when he had the chance to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir, the London operation of which was set up by Omar Bakri Muhammad, a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood who later went on to found al-Muhajiroun, or distancing himself from the work of the Muslim Council of Britain.’

To which Straw replies:

"The Muslim Council of Britain is a good thing."

"Iqbal Sacranie [the council's former general secretary] is a good friend of mine. As for Hizb ut-Tahrir, I want to see the evidence that tells me the organisation should be banned. It's absurd to say I'm soft on Islamism. To ban organisations, you first need evidence."

On the Swiss referendum to ban the building of minarets, Straw remarks:

"This is preposterous, a form of religious persecution . . . we should be worried about. We have seen this kind of thing before in Europe, with the banning of the Star of David. We all know about the levels of anti-Semitism in the late 1930s and where that led us."

Read the interview in full here.

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