Emir of Qatar ‘helped Jack Straw win election’:
Jack Straw helped to secure a £1.5m donation from the Emir of Qatar to a mosque in his Blackburn constituency.
The justice secretary’s help in fixing the gift was used by the Labour party to woo the Muslim vote, it was claimed this weekend.
MPs, security experts and moderate Islamic leaders said Straw’s role raised serious concerns about the way some foreign states were trying to sway the religious views of British Muslims.
Straw wrote a letter of introduction to help his friend and political ally Lord Patel of Blackburn persuade the emir, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa al-Thani, to part with £1.5m.
It is always worth investigating where money coming into mosques and Muslim institutions (usually registered charities), but I am not sure Haras Rafiq or Patrick Mercer, both quoted in The Times article above, have much in the way of credibility if this is the game they wish to play. Rafiq is part of the Sufi Muslim Council (enough said), and Mercer has not properly answered questions about his role in the terror headline scandal involving Glen Jenvey.
Jack Straw’s links with the Blackburn Muslim community were subject to attention during the 2005 General Election, most notably a campaign by Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK, and (separately) Craig Murray, the former ambassador to Uzbekistan, who stood as a candidate against Straw.
These links to Muslim groups were under scrutiny again last week, although this time from MI5:
A SECRET MI5 report on Islamic extremism in Blackburn has raised “potential concerns” about some radical Muslim factions known to Jack Straw, the local MP and justice secretary.
A senior security figure who has seen the report said it underlined concern among cabinet colleagues that Straw could be “too close” to the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), a prominent Muslim umbrella group. The government formally severed links with the group after a blazing row over extremism earlier this year.
“Jack’s a bit too close to the MCB — he sometimes appears to suggest they are the only game in town. There is a concern that proximity to them may colour [his] judgment,” the insider said.
Since we don’t live in a millet system, it might be better to reduce reliance on these acronyms altogether.
