“Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish National Party, has been spectacularly canny and effective as Scotland’s first minister, moving his nationalist pieces across the British constitutional chessboard with stealth and skill.

“But there’s a dimension to this that has so far passed below the radar – the scimitar slung around the kilt.

“Tomorrow, the Scottish Islamic Foundation will be launched in Edinburgh in Salmond’s presence. But as the invaluable Centre for Social Cohesion tells us, the  leading members of this group and many of those who lead its events are closely linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, whose aim is the Islamisation of Britain and Europe.

“Its chief executive Omar [sic] Saeed, who has worked as Salmond’s researcher and is the SNP’s parliamentary candidate for Glasgow Central, is an Islamist and leading light in the Brotherhood front the Muslim Association of Britain. Saeed follows the usual Brotherhood line of promoting certain limited moderate positions, such as calling for an end to forced marriages or opposing terrorism in Britain, thus enabling him to pass himself off as a moderate while he slips and slides over issues such as sharia. But he is of course an unequivocal supporter of the Brotherhood leader Yusuf Qaradawi who endorses terrorist mass murder in Israel and Iraq – support which inescapably identifies the holder of such a view as an extremist and terrorist sympathiser….

“The Salmond/Saeed axis is not merely a disturbing sign of Salmond’s own prejudices. It has a potential strategic significance that goes beyond Scotland. The Brotherhood’s strategy for Britain is to promote separate Islamic development, declare sharia-only enclaves and infiltrate mainstream institutions as a springboard for Islamising the entire society. Since Salmond’s aim is to make Scotland independent from the rest of the United Kingdom, with one leap the Brothers could achieve an Islamised country on England’s border. Scottish voters might be getting more than they bargained for: a Caledonian caliphate.”

Melanie Phillips’s blog, 25 June 2008

“The scimitar slung around the kilt”? “With one leap the Brothers could achieve an Islamised country on England’s border”? Surely it can’t be long before the men in white coats arrive for Mel.

See also Douglas Murray’s “Alex Salmond cosies up to Muslim Brotherhood” at ConservativeHome.