UK media is reporting that Prime Minister David Cameron has ordered an inquiry into the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United Kingdom. According to a Sky News report that cites the GMBDW editor:
United Kingdom
April 1, 2014 The British government has ordered an investigation into the Muslim Brotherhood’s (MB) activities in the UK.
It fears the repression of radical members in Egypt may have driven some to take up residence in Britain.
The domestic intelligence agency MI5 will take the lead in the investigation, but Prime Minister David Cameron also wants to know more about the philosophy of the MB to see if it is compatible with democracy. If not, the group could be banned in the UK, although this is considered unlikely.
A Downing Street spokesperson said Mr Cameron had ordered a ‘review into the origins, philosophy, activities, and record in and out of Government of the MB; and of its connections, real or alleged, with extremism, terrorism, sedition, subversion and other activities which damage, actually or potentially, UK national interests.’
The intelligence agencies face a difficult task in establishing who is and isn’t in the Muslim Brotherhood.
Since its earliest beginning in Egypt in the 1920s, it has been a secretive organisation with a partial cell structure, many front organisations, splinter groups and groups which share a similar philosophy that political Islam is the the answer to the question of how to govern people.
Steven Merley, an investigator of extremist movements, who has tracked MB activity for more than a decade , told Sky News: ‘Many groups don’t call themselves Muslim Brotherhood but they are linked to what I call the ‘Global Muslim Brotherhood’.’
Readers of the GMBDW and its predecessor publication have long been aware that the UK serves as the main hub for the Global Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas in Europe. The GMBDW reserves judgment on the probe pending any information available as to its outcome and whether or not it extends to the wider Global Muslim Brotherhood network in the UK.
