Will Theresa May allow Muhammad Salah to enter the UK?

Unencumbered by the regressive Liberal Democrats, the new government has already managed to start taking extremism seriously.  The counter-extremism legislation which the Lib Dems managed to stall will be included in the Queen’s Speech next week.

But the government already faces an early test of its policies. Muhammad Salah – a ‘star’ of Huda TV – is due to speak next month at ten venues across the UK, from Edinburgh to Crawley at a ‘Welcome Ramadan’ event. You can see the invitation from ‘Human Appeal’ here.

Now Salah is a strange and disconcerting figure to ‘Welcome Ramadan’. And the Home Secretary can hardly deem his views to be conducive to the public good. For instance Salah seems to believe that ‘Islam does not recognise marriage between a Muslim female and a non-Muslim under any circumstances’ and that in the Islamic state he wishes to bring about all those who leave Islam should be killed.

He is also – how to say this – not entirely behind a peaceful two-state conclusion to the territorial dispute between Israel and the Palestinians.  Indeed he seems to think that the Jews are attempting to take over most of the region, including Saudi Arabia: ‘So Allah orders us to fight against those who fight against us. If we sit back and we dismiss the army and the military of the Muslim countries, tomorrow the Zionists will take over. Tomorrow they will reach to Mecca.’

He also appears to think that Europe, America and Israel are behind most of the evil in the world:

‘If we examine most of the crimes which are happening worldwide right now, or in the past 50 years, there is a link to the Zionist criminals, definitely, whether in America, in Europe, or in the Middle East.’ ‘Those people [Zionists] live to harm the international community.