“For the left not to have stood with Muslims would have been a real betrayal. But for showing solidarity and working with Muslim organisations – whether in the anti-war movement or in campaigns against Islamophobia – leftwing groups and politicians such as the London mayor, Ken Livingstone, are now routinely damned by liberal secularists (many of whom have been keen supporters of the war in Iraq) for ‘betraying the enlightenment’ and making common cause with ‘Islamofascists’, homophobes and misogynists.”

Seumas Milne in Guardian, 16 December 2004