David Cameron yesterday endorsed a new Conservative report which condemned the “hardline” views of the Muslim Council of Britain and other Islamic groups. The Conservative leader argued that the Government must not bow to the “loudest voices” in the Muslim community when he attended the launch of the report by his national and international security policy group.

The report, Uniting the Country, singled out the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), widely seen as the mainstream voice of Muslims in the UK, for allowing “hardline members… to dominate policy and crowd out more moderate voices.”

The Tory policy group, chaired by Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, the former head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, also challenged the MCB’s approval of extremist clerics like Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who supports the death penalty for gays, as well as its failure to participate in Holocaust Memorial Day.

Mr Cameron said: “Policy makers should stop assuming that the loudest voices and the most organised elements within the Muslim community necessarily represent the Muslim population as a whole. There’s a danger that groups with agendas aimed at separation rather than integration are deferred to when they should be challenged.”

Daily Telegraph, 31 January 2007

In an accompanying editorial, the Telegraph applauds Cameron and the Tories for “laying bare the perils of multiculturalism”.

For a response by the MCB, see the Guardian, 31 January 2007

See also MCB news release, 30 January 2007

As for the fascists of the British National Party, they criticise Cameron’s attack on multiculturalism and Muslim organisations on the grounds that it falls short of “dismantling the structures of the multicultural State and restoring our lost ancestral rights and freedoms”. BNP news article, 30 January 2007