The National Council of the Muslim Council of Britain met on 16 February and passed the following resolution:

We are appalled by the visit to Britain of the leader of France’s Front National, Marine Le Pen, due on 19 February. Le Pen is at the forefront in stoking hatred towards Muslims and calling for a restriction of their freedoms. Britain fortunately has a tradition of tolerance and accommodation that rightly scorns Le Pen and her ilk. However the danger is that it will embolden the extremist right wing in the UK. The Muslim community fails to understand why a Government that is ready to invoke banning or exclusion orders on Muslims on flimsy grounds of ‘hate speech’ has not been alert to the actual harm to community relations caused by Le Pen’s visit.

MCB news release, 18 February 2013

Conrad Landin challenges the decision to invite the Front National leader to address the Cambridge Union.

Guardian, 13 February 2013

The Cambridge News reports that Front National leader Marine Le Pen, notorious for her virulently Islamophobic rhetoric, is billed to speak at the Cambridge Union on 19 February.

A spokesman for the Cambridge Union Society is quoted as saying:

“Whether you agree with her politics or not, this event represents one of the very few opportunities a British audience has had to directly engage with Mme Le Pen, who finished third in the last French presidential election, behind Hollande and Sarkozy, and currently sits in the European Parliament as a democratically elected representative.

“The Cambridge Union has a two-hundred year history of promoting the art of debating and free speech and this event is fundamentally in keeping with that tradition.”

See also Morning Star, 12 February 2013

Unite Against Fascism is organising a demonstration against Le Pen. Details can be found here.