UK House of Commons Report Finds Muslim Brotherhood “Contrary to Our National Interests and Our National Security”

There has been considerable debate over the beliefs and goals of the Muslim Brotherhood. Many prominent Muslim organizations in both the United Kingdom and the United States are linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, including the highly visible Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated student groups feature prominently on college campuses.

Despite the fact that CAIR and other groups have been linked by law enforcement to terrorist groups, some American and British officials have gone on record describing the Muslim Brotherhood as a moderating force that should be engaged. Departments of the United States government, including those involved in homeland security, have worked with Muslim Brotherhood-linked organizations. Individuals associated with Muslim Brotherhood affiliates have been invited to the White House and even officiated at government events.

Other officials, scholars and commentators have argued that the Muslim Brotherhood should be ostracized, accusing the group and its affiliates of seeking to infiltrate and subvert western society. In some cases, such warnings have been met with accusations of Islamophobia.

In April 2014, British Prime Minister David Cameron commissioned an internal review of the Muslim Brotherhood, “including its origins, ideology, record in and out of government; and its organisation and activities in the UK and abroad.” The chief authors of the report were Sir John Jenkins, until recently HM Ambassador to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and Charles Farr, who served as the Director General of the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism in the Home Office.

On December 17, 2015, the authors presented their findings to the House of Commons. The investigators concluded that the Muslim Brotherhood represents a break from traditional Islam. It has “promoted a radical, transformative politics, at odds with a millennium of Islamic jurisprudence and statecraft.”

The authors observed that although “the Muslim Brotherhood historically focused on remodelling individuals and communities through grassroots activism… they have also selectively used violence and sometimes terror in pursuit of their institutional goals.”

Although much of the report remains classified, the public portion discloses that “Their [Muslim Brotherhood] public narrative – notably in the West – emphasised engagement not violence. But there have been significant differences between Muslim Brotherhood communications in English and Arabic.”

Contrary to the hoped for moderation of the Muslim Brotherhood when it achieved political power in Egypt, a concept advocated by media mavens like Christiane Amanpour and The New York Times, the British investigation refuted these prognostications as nonsense, noting,

there is little evidence that the experience of power in Egypt has caused a rethinking in the
Muslim Brotherhood of its ideology or conduct. UK official engagement with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood produced no discernible change in their thinking. Indeed even by mid-2014 statements from Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood-linked media platforms seem to have deliberately incited violence…

Concerning Muslim Brotherhood activities within the UK itself, the commission offered disturbing observations that

much about the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK remains secretive, including membership, fund raising and educational programmes. But Muslim Brotherhood associates and affiliates here have at times had significant influence on the largest UK Muslim student organisation, national organisations which have claimed to represent Muslim communities (and on that basis have sought and had a dialogue with Government), charities and some mosques.

Though their domestic influence has declined organisations associated with the Muslim Brotherhood continue to have an influence here which is disproportionate to their size…

Those who have made similar observations about the radical disposition and disproportionate influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States find themselves marginalized and rebuked by government officials.

The British report also notes that

the Muslim Brotherhood have been publicly committed to political engagement in this country… But this engagement did not take account of Muslim Brotherhood support for a proscribed terrorist group and its views about terrorism which, in reality, were quite different from our own.

The commission report concludes on a sober note, establishing that

aspects of Muslim Brotherhood ideology and tactics, in this country and overseas, are contrary to our values and have been contrary to our national interests and our national security.

Supporting the report’s findings, Prime Minister Cameron described the movement as “deliberately opaque and habitually secretive” and in a statement to MPs, the Prime Minister wrote: “Aspects of the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology and activities… run counter to British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, equality and the mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs (The Independent, Dec. 17, 2015).”