Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

The curious case of Mo Ansar

How did a former bank employee from Hampshire become the voice of British Islam?

Maajid Nawaz, Mehdi Hasan and Mo Ansar on Newsnight with Jeremy Paxman. [Getty Images/Shutterstock/iStock/Alamy] 
issue 17 May 2014

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[/audioplayer]If a curious stranger asked you to name a British Muslim commentator, I guess you would name Mo Ansar. So omnipresent has he become, he seems at times to be Britain’s only Muslim commentator.

‘Mo Ansar: Open for business,’ read his first tweet on 8 August 2011, and business has been rolling in ever since. Ansar

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