Earlier this month, the UAE announced it was sanctioning 11 individuals and eight rather obscure organisations for alleged connections to the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). The UAE proscribed the MB as a terrorist group in 2014, so you might be forgiven for thinking this was routine. But it wasn’t. All eight organisations were based in the UK. Normally this works the other way round: the UK bans or sanctions entities elsewhere. Having an Arab country – especially one we claim as a friend – do that in reverse should set alarm bells ringing. There was a brief flurry of press interest, then silence.
The Muslim Brotherhood is the mothership of all modern Islamisms
In early 2014 David Cameron commissioned me to deliver a policy review of the Muslim Brotherhood. There was an outpouring of scorn on social media and in the press. Academics, self-designated experts and (so it seemed) the entire liberal commentariat agreed that the idea was absurd.
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