“Founded in Egypt in 1928 to restore the Caliphate, the Muslim Brotherhood is a skilful international operator which, in Britain, runs innumerable sharp-suited entryists who claim to be moderate spokesmen for British Muslims and who, for years, have been feted uncritically by the political establishment. The FCO has been under the illusion that it could do business with the appalling Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Brotherhood’s spiritual leader, and has spent British taxpayers’ money on flying him to a conference on European Islam.

“Ken Livingstone has welcomed him as a brother, despite Qaradawi’s approval for suicide bombers and his belief that gays should be executed and women subject to men. At a Livingstone-sponsored conference recently (A World Civilisation or a Clash of Civilisations), the mayor assured us that Qaradawi is a moderate. But then Livingstone is the lodestar for the self-deluding, hypocritical Left whose communal self-loathing makes their country’s enemies their friends.

“I saw at first hand in the 1980s how Livingstone and his acolytes encouraged and, where possible, financed the malcontent IRA-supporting Irish who hated the country in which they lived while despising those of us who were working for integration and mutual understanding. These people march against the war in Iraq alongside people who would install the Taliban in Downing Street….

“As the American counter-terrorism analyst Daniel Pipes put it at Livingstone’s conference in a speech that showed up his host to be the time-warped, paranoid Lefty that he is, we are not dealing with a clash of civilisations: it is the civilised world against the barbarians. And the enemy is Islamism. As they infiltrate universities, prisons, politics, the media and the public service, the army of self-confident Islamists watch us crumble when accused of Islamophobia and believe we no longer have the stomach for a fight.”

Ruth Dudley Edwards in the Daily Telegraph, 3 February 2007