The Brotherhood was put on trial here as both a security network and a proxy for Islam itself: Yes won 476 votes to 117, an overwhelming decision. Yet the chamber’s most-respected arguments did not all stay within the question, with one of the top-rated posts moving from proscription to a call to remove religious status from Islam altogether.
The focused Yes case was about alleged Hamas links, foreign funding and institutional access. Its strongest voice asked: “Why are we letting an outfit with proven links to Hamas set up shop in Britain”, while another argued that the Brotherhood advances “a political ideology hostile to democratic norms”. Other Yes voters pointed to caliphate politics, bans elsewhere and the need to apply the same rule to extremist groups of every stripe.
The No side was smaller but more specific about the dangers of the remedy. Its best-rated objection called the proposal “Another dig at Muslims”, while another warned that “2015 is too long ago to form a sensible judgment”; others argued that proscription was “an authoritarian measure” whose effectiveness remained unclear. The two sides often talked past each other: Yes treated association and ideology as a security threshold, while No demanded current evidence and worried about collective stigma.
The page then widened into the familiar national argument over counter-extremism, religious prejudice and the Israel-Palestine conflict, with replies invoking Christian groups, Greenpeace and Mandela alongside Hamas. The exchange became especially combustible around Palestine, one No voice insisting: “Palestine is a country, or was until certain powers that be deemed otherwise.”
For a self-selected platform vote, the verdict was unusually decisive; what remained unsettled was whether the target was an organisation, a political ideology, or Islam in the broadest terms.
34 Opinions
Not only that but we should remove religious status from Islam as it is not a religion, it’s a hateful, regressive ideology for world domination that specifically appeals to the worst aspects of human desires. Rape, murder, misogyny, pedophilia, murder, subjugation! It’s truly evil and we need only look at the 56 countries it’s already ruined to see what awaits the fools that would invite these heathens into their homes! We already have the evidence here in the uk crime stat
Why are we letting an outfit with proven links to Hamas set up shop in Britain, funnelling cash to foreign extremists while preaching stuff that divides our communities and trashes basic rights?
Forget the brotherhood, ban islam in it's entirety. No country has ever been improved by importing this creed and it's 10th century ideas.
They're called terrorists by their own kind. Giving them a foothold in the UK is like a Christmas turkey providing its own stuffing.
Not a dig at Muslims, this section has been banned across most Muslim countries as a threat. Similar to them not wanting Palestinians, wonder why
All political Islam calling for Caliphate should be banned. Regardless of name.
Islam is not a religion. It is an expansionary imperial project with a death cult attached. The MB is a terrorist organisation pushing the laughable lie that Muslims are victims. All countries save 1 in the Middle East was once Christian or other local faiths. Islam invaded murderd raped & exterminated these people and they openly say that this is what will happen to UK. Ban Islam it is not compatible with freedom, in UK Marxism is being used as fools by them. Won’t end well.
We keep saying we care about our international reputation. The world is laughing at us for not prescribing the Muslim Brotherhood. How stupid are we for not seeing the threat.
The Muslim Brotherhood is a major supporter of terror and for that reason is banned throughout much of the Middle East and North Africa. Ministers and diplomats from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and elsewhere have been pressing Britain to do this for years We are not serious about dealing with extremism whilst leaving this organisation to operate in Britain
Every active organisation including political organisations working against the United Kingdom need to be proscribed. People will whine about democracy and free speech but those who are working against us are traitors who must be stopped