“Cohen’s central charge against the left, by which he in effect means the anti-war movement, is that we compromised our principles by demonstrating alongside people who are not liberals or socialists. This is buttressed by the creation of a spurious ‘Islamofascism’, which no one has yet defined satisfactorily, and no conceivable definition of which fits the many Muslims I have campaigned alongside. Its promiscuous use by the pro-war party in Britain amounts to little more than an attempt at political intimidation directed against an already racially oppressed minority…. In his demonology, all the baddies are of the the same faith. Any of you out there who were proud to march with hundreds of thousands of British Muslims in 2003 – you were fooled. In the world of Nick Cohen, they really want to stone you to death for adultery.”
Andrew Murray, chair of the Stop the War Coalition, responds to Nick Cohen’s new book What’s Left?