Workers Liberty reports:
[L]eft activists at Westminster narrowly lost this year’s elections to people who at the very least sympathisers of the radical right-wing Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT). The incumbent VP Education, AWL member Jade Baker, was very narrowly defeated.
To activists at most other universities, where even more moderate Islamist groups remain on the fringes, this probably sounds a bit bizarre. But Westminster has a huge, possibly even majority Muslim student population, and HT have been building a base there for years, long before the reappearance of the student left in the anti-cuts struggles of 2009-10.
Their front society Global Ideas (HT itself is banned by the university) gets big turn outs for its events. In this election, their candidates did not run openly on anything like their real program — misogyny, homophobia, anti-semitism and religious sectarianism, as steps towards a global caliphate in which all elements of self-organisation and democracy are suppressed — but on a communalist appeal for Muslim students to “Vote for Da 3 Brothers”.
They conclude:
The left at Westminster needs to use the next couple of months to build up our activist networks so they can survive in more difficult conditions next year, and to launch an open political campaign to challenge Hizb ut-Tahrir and their periphery on campus.
The Left, generally speaking, has ducked the fight with Islamist groups. Some parts of it are in alliance with Islamist parties. Although Socialist Organiser/Workers’ Liberty is a notable exception to that rule, they’re small. Parts of Labour are also very good on this issue: but are typically vilified by the far Left as racists for their opposition to the Islamist far Right.
So, good luck on this one.
