It’s not just the BNP who are pissed off about IslamExpo. They are joined by David T of Harry’s Place, who claims that “it is impossible to miss the dominant presence of the falangist Muslim Brotherhood and of other allied Islamist groupings. That much is apparent from the event’s home page, where the speakers who are pictured and presented prominently include a range of high profile Muslim Brotherhood activists, including … Tariq Ramadan”. So, according to this nonsensical argument, the Muslim Brotherhood are fascists and Professor Ramadan is one of their activists.

This would be the same Tariq Ramadan who has stated: “je n’ai pas de lien organique et organisationnel avec les Frères musulmans. Ma pensée est indépendante et ne s’élabore pas dans le cadre de leurs structures, dont je ne suis pas et que je ne représente pas, contrairement à ce que continuent à diffuser divers services de police en Europe…. j’ai des divergences de vue réelles et profondes avec la pensée des Frères, avec la façon dont sont gérées leurs structures et dont ils conçoivent leur engagement sur le terrain.” (Alain Gresh and Tariq Ramadan, L’Islam en questions, pp.35-6.)

But what can you expect from David T? Elsewhere he has denounced Yusuf al-Qaradawi as a “Qutbist“, when Qaradawi’s differences with Sayyid Qutb are publicly stated and indeed obvious to anyone with an elementary knowledge of the subject. And this from a man who announces in his Guardian Comment is Free profile that his field of expertise is “the state of the British Left generally, and in particular … its strange romance with political Islam”. Unfortunately, David T’s attitudes towards the Left and Islamism are determined by the same underlying principle – ignorant bigotry.