Tower Hamlets: How Islamists Built a Political Fiefdom in London | Hannah Baldock on FWI Podcast

0:04 Greetings everyone. I want to welcome everybody to Focus on Western Islamism's inaugural podcast. Uh we are speaking with Annie Baldock, one of the most indefatigable writers. She's been doggedly writing about Islamism in the United Kingdom and she's done some tremendous on the scene reporting. Hannah is a former research fellow for the center for radicalization and terrorism at the Henry Jackson Society and a regular contributor to Focus on Western Islamism, the Daily Telegraph, The Spectator, and Spike. Can you give people just a brief description of how you got into the the dismal subject of Islamism in the United Kingdom? I got into looking into Islamism around 2017 when we had a succession of terror attacks here in the UK. Um the the Manchester Arena bombing at the Ariana Grande concert and attacks around London Bridge on a Friday evening when people were um having drinks after work in the summer and another one on Westminster Bridge. It just coincided with

1:09 a quite a large influx of exiled Arabs arriving in West London around 2011 onwards. And there were obviously lots of dynamics at play there, but quite a large number of Egyptian and Syrian exiled families arrived in in West London. There always has been quite a large Arab population, but there is quite a hub of Islamist oriented media organizations including Alarabi was set up as a a new TV channel after the Arab Spring to kind of cater for that constituency. There's quite a lot of charities as well. So there's quite a lot to to You had worked as a reporter before before all of this happened. I had been a foreign correspondent in South America. Another fascinating region there. I I learned a lot about demagoguery, populism, crazy socialist projects and a lot of which there's quite some crossover with Islamist political maneuvers and goals. So some of my research was transferable, but a lot of it is new. You've been pretty aggressive and

2:24 disciplined in your coverage of Tower Hamlets. Can you tell people what's going on there? Tower really is the kind of petri dish for how Islam can mobilize voters behind certain candidates and take over burers or cities wholesale or possibly larger larger electoral districts. The classic Italian philosophers always say an organized minority can easily dominate a disorganized majority. And of course, it just so happens to hand is is particular in that it has a one of the largest Muslim populations in of any burough in the UK. It's 39% Muslim. I think about 34.5 of those are of Bangladeshi origin. The social and religious hub of that community is a very large and wellunded mosque, the East London mosque, which just happens to have been set up by exiled members of exiled Bangladeshi Islamist factions who fled their homeland after the 1971 war of independence which they lost. Obviously, migrations of peoples will change the the ethnic makeup of of districts

3:36 and voters of different backgrounds will have different priorities and they will want to see their interests reflected and and themselves represented. No one's arguing with that. It's just it's the it's the method and the means. An electoral court judgment in 2015 and successive government interventions in the burough since look for Ramen came into ascendency have have uh have proven that it has been by foul means that he was has been elected. The people he's appointed, the contracts he's awarded, the housing allocations, there have just been a welter of allegations of fraud and malfeasants, some of which have been hard to evidence. And that's why the police have failed repeatedly in their duty to enforce electoral law and also public accounting law uh is is a real bug bear of of the opposition. There's eight opposition councilors. They they have now won 33 out of 45. Now, one of the interesting things is that you mentioned earlier the East London mosque and in end of 2024 I actually went into that mosque for afternoon prayers.

4:44 The interesting thing is that if I had known everything that you had documented for our writing about the East London mosque in your coverage of Tower Hamlets, I'm not sure I would have set foot in the mosque. They play they play their cards very very skillfully really. Once the American ambassador under Barack Obama, Louis Susman, visited the Prince Charles opened the London Muslim Center which is really and that was funded with funding from the EU and from the London Development Agency. is partially publicly funded building which reports later suggested is is actually used as a base for the if the Islamic forum of Europe which is alleged to be a front for the Jamaati Islami which is the network which is responsible for mobilizing the vote largely behind behind Raman and the Tahham's council of mosques is based there and there's a malana shams huck was named in the electoral court judgement against Ramen. He's the chair of the Teros. He's a sort of Bengali elder and he he is very much a sort of a rallying figure. He's very revered as a

5:55 sort of Muslim community leader and elder and he was accused of working handin glove with Ram in 2014 election which was declared melan boy. But the East Beast Mosque, Prince William and Kate visited, they they obviously do a lot of social and welfare outreach work. When the COVID pandemic was on, you know, they were very extremely busy delivering food parcels to the elderly and and uh doing their good works and they have a very organized network for all that sort of things. But on on the flip side, as you paper in 2019 by the Commission for Countering Extremism, mainstreaming Islamism said, "The trouble with engaging with and and legitimizing institutions like the Islam mosque is that the cord on saniter around institutions that host extremists of which have included in the past hardline procalate salifist types Hamal Hadad, Ismile M from Zimbabwe, the Islamic Reform of Europe notoriously hosted a talk by video link from Anoir Alaki. They always claimed that they didn't know they didn't do the booking or they didn't know that what he

7:06 was going to say or they didn't think at the time he was extremist despite he was linked to multiple terror plots thereafter in the UK and and and the US. Obviously me thinks they just protest too much, you know, about never being aware of the the extremist positions of of any of these. And and I want to encourage our listeners to actually read Hannah's articles on our website, which can be seen at Middle East forumfy. One of the things is that people are going to say, "Okay, so Luke Fer Ramen, he's a corrupt politician, but a lot of politicians are corrupt. I live in the city of Boston that was at one time led by a guy by the name of James Michael Curley who was as corrupt as they come. He was an Irish Catholic politician that used grievance to stay in power to allow in a certain amount of populism but he didn't derive his support from people who wanted to fundamentally change how western democracy operates. Do you think that that's one of the things that that the people at the East London mosque are interested in or or or when

8:17 they support extremists because people like Curly might have supported certain level of corruption but but there was also there's an ideological component to this isn't there? Absolutely. That is why they are so highly organized and so highly motivated. I mean they do think they are doing God's work and it's a quid proquo. The Tower Camels Council of Mosques received a £250,000 contract for mosque engagement after they helped for Ramen get reelected in in 2022. The Eastand Mosque itself has had by 2011 it had already had up to up to approaching 3 million of public funding. It's built on council land. It started off as a couple of Porsche cabins, but it's expanded and expanded with with public money and and private uh donations. But residents of the burough, it it's it's a very young and growing population. The Bengali, the Bangladeshi Muslim population of the burough, 14% of them were born outside of uh the UK. They're born in Bangladesh. They probably don't even remember the previous corruption scandals

9:26 around Ramen which which started sort of more than 10 years ago. The electoral court judgment was now more than 10 years ago. Ramen very much caters to the youth vote. So he is spending 13 million a year on on youth provisions. He's got 20 new youth centers that he's built. But well, you may say great, wonderful to to keep the youth off the streets and keep them productive. But residents noticed that um 12 hours a week is taken up with Arabic classes or Quran Arabic classes and um you know sisters groups which obviously Muslim only sisters groups they were very active during the progaza protests and organizing around that they noticed that thing things in the bar start to change whether it's segregated leisure facilities segregated swimming and and also that more and more mosques keep appearing ing and and a lot of times on council land there's a mosque called the Melis Street mosque that was built on council land. It was meant started as a community center. That's usually the pattern is that it's agreements with developers um because obviously to hamlets is a wealthy burough. It hosts Canary Warf which is a major financial center in the UK. It generates

10:38 about 40 billion of GDP and 12 billion of tax receipts. It has a lot of land and it's sort of ripe for regeneration. But as one counselor told me, you you that where this Melis Street mosque was built, she could have bought built 40 flats. It was a bomb site, but it was a community center that was turned into a mosque at a cost of 8 million pounds. That pattern sort of seems to replicate across the burough. Obviously the the burough will change with the demographic changes but it's uh this quid proquo that uh residents observe between the mosque which mobilized the votes. There's a a big article in the left lane where a Bangladeshi Muslim uh contributor wrote an open letter to Jeremy Corbyn. So Jeremy Corbyn appeared in the campaign videos for look for Ramen. He is the former leader of the Labour Party who left scandals about anti-semitism in the party which he said were exaggerated but they weren't. He is now sitting as a pro Gaza independent MP for Islington North. He's backed Ramen all the way. In fact, Ramen appointed Jeremy Corbyn's former

11:46 chief of staff Amy Jackson and Perry Murphy some of his campaign staff Ramen appointed. So for people outside of the United Kingdom, you know, they're going to say, "We know that that Luf Ramen has established a FFT uh and he's done it with the support of Islamists from the local Muslim community and some of them have ties to the Jamaati Islami and that they are hostile to the the principles of of Western democracy and that they're using a combination of Islamism and socialism and grievance politics to achieve power. What's this going to do to like the Labor Party and what's it going to do to British politics in general? Even Bengali voices are saying that a party that Ramen has has founded Aspire is what political scientists call a clementalist machine. It's got no no functioning membership. Democracy decisions are made by its leader and a small cadre of advisers. It's it's not a healthy development for democracy to have parties that are run like that and who don't vet their candidates. One of the candidates for counselor ahead of this last

12:58 election was suspended for expressing admiration for Adolf Hitler and calling the Holocaust a holo. Traditionally, in a two-party system or three that that the UK has had historically, you've relied on those big brand parties to vet candidates for poverty and and whether whether they're suitable for public office. The Policy Exchange policy institute has done two papers recently about Islamop populism. When you have in in the north of England in Birmingham, they had a an ex-terrorist was running for to be a counselor in Birmingham. I mean that was widely discussed in the press before the elections. I mean he wasn't elected but the fact that he still stood is is pretty alarming. We've got this outfit the Muslim vote which was founded in December 2023 really to kind of capitalize on the wave of anti-Israel anger and by extension anger with the lab and the conservatives for not doing anything to stop the prosecution of of Israel's war in Gaza. the Muslim vote saw an opportunity to harness those votes it is going to lead to the bulcanization of

14:07 of British politics the Labour party's hemorrhaged votes to these independents whether at local level like to look for arms aspire party there are other malties that are also up for grabs and there's a there's the west London the West Midland's mayoralty was almost won by a guy who said he'd been sent by all to fight Zionism and the elites that are controlled by by Zionism right a regular political party would disqualify somebody with a history of corruption. Obviously, it's not the only party that's had trouble with its candidates. The other effect of the rise of a so-called Islamic populism is that it triggers support for parties that are further right like the Reform Party, Restore Britain, all of these parties that want to deal more firmly with um mass migration, illegal immigration, Islamism, the the ones that are less consiliatory and and want to take more hardline starts against these types of forces. reform has also had great trouble with its candidates. It's had some bad apples and parties will have bad apples. But with Aspire, it feels like we've imported wholesale this political culture from Bangladesh which is based

15:15 on kin and clan and religious networks and it's not really even trying to be accountable in the in the usual way. And that's a very good point to make. I don't know if you've seen the the the the response to this movie called Citizen Vigilante, which was broadcast on uh on X. It's basically about a vigilante that that engages in terrible acts of violence against uh immigrants and uh judges that are seen as lenient on their behalf. Ramen, he's always maintained that the electoral court judgment against him was motivated s grapes and bad losers. The fact that he's been reelected twice demonstrates that whatever happened in the 2014 election is has now been sort of superseded by two elections that there was no wrongdoing alleged or proven. It it's I I think um the the the open letter that was written by this Bengali um I don't know if he's a journalist or sort of

16:24 public intellectual but he basically was saying that he was writing anonymously because he didn't want to get the usual phone calls and knocks on the door from Ramen's people if he were to put his name to this article. But he's saying these progressives who think that they are advancing progressive causes by by backing Ramen's campaign and helping him get elected, they just don't know what you're getting yourself into. These people are responsible for the deaths of my relatives in Bangladesh. I mean, the networks that they that they leverage. Yeah. Maybe not them personally, but the organizations that they organizations linked to the East London Mosque. I mean Ramen himself of course has not been Ramen has he has called the East London mosque are very val extremely important and valued partner which is responsible for delivering some of our services. He doesn't say what services they are. Um but the the Tal Hammets Council website does show that East London Mosque member leadership the chief executive met with Ramen and his top his executive team not long before the election. They're in this town's partnership group with with

17:37 the Metropolitan Police and Queen Mary University, the Canary Warf group. So, as I pointed out in my article, there aren't any Jewish or Christian or other faiths organizations included in this partnership group, right? Which seems a lot like what's happening in New York with Mam Dani, Mayor Manni. He referenced Mandali recently. He for said because he had obviously a lot of what he does, he sets himself up as as a classic sort of just socialist populist. Um he he said he wanted to correct imbalances in in power and as well as meeting people's everyday needs. His latest offerings have been free tube and bus travel and the London Underground for low-income families which he said he was inspired by free bus fairs in New York. Ken Livingston used to do this. The former mayor of London did a deal with Hugo Chavez in Venezuela once to cheat fuel oil for Fountain buses for free bus travel for I don't know who it was for. Obviously Ram is not the first to have to have tried as a socialist quite far-left socialist in a capitalist economy and city but he won't be the first or the last. It's more what does he owe to people and who does he

18:48 owe the who does he owe it to you know his position? What choices does the average voter in the United Kingdom and policy makers have? What are they supposed to do? It's interesting. There's been kind of a stunned silence since the May 2026 election. I mean, there was relative silence when Ramen got back in in 2022 and people couldn't quite believe it. But now it's sort of we're so far down the track with all of this and obviously good money has been thrown after bad with with the taxpayer funding all of these continuous inspections and investigations and interventions. The answer is hard to see. There's a great concern that example of tower hamlets could be replicated in burrows across the UK in places like Bradford and Kirkley and Olden. There are sort of similar highly organized um factions in those local authorities. How do we stop this from happening in other cities in the United Kingdom and in the West in general? First of all, that the police have got

19:55 to um get their act together. The police in the UK were particularly cowed by a report that came out called the McFersonen report which called the police institutionally racist. This was after the racist murder of black youth Steven Lawrence at a bus stop in in New South very hamlets. Actually, after that, we've had the woke capture of the institutions, the police, the judiciary, the schools in terms of all of this concern about DEI and and racism, Islamophobia, and so forth. It's really been up to our Muslim intellectuals who are non-Islamists, people like El Manet, who's written a book, Perils of Nonviolent Islamism, saying that you've really got to confront your well-meaning reflexes and take a cleareyed look at this. What do these people actually want? um listen to their ambitions for Sharia and for a caliphate and deal with them accordingly. We need to just a massive public public uh information campaign about Islamism. The Austrians and the

21:02 the Germans have got observatories on political Islam now. they're more advanced than the UK in actually identifying and uh tackling some of these subversive forces. We should wrap it up pretty soon, but do you think that they should have similar observatories in the UK? Certainly. The UK did the Muslim Brotherhood review. It probably needs to do an another piece of work on Jamati Islami. The majority of the mosques in the UK are controlled by the Diabandi movement which is a South Asian anti-colonial anti-western uh sort of procaliphate. Jules Gomez recently wrote a piece about the Muslim police association talking about trying to debunk the whole idea of of Islamist extremism or Islamism per se as do all all of the um sort of Islamist aligned groups. So I think the police, the electoral commission, central government need to get very wise to some of these forces and the way they operate and take a zero tolerance approach to any any breaches of

22:08 of electional law. Well, then that's going to be your job to write about in the in the the weeks and months ahead. I think we should probably bring it to a close because I want to keep this shorter. I just want to remind people go to Focus on Western Islamism's website and look at Hannah's pieces because they are brilliant uh documentation about what's going on in Tower Hamlets. And unfortunately enough uh it's relevant to what's happening to FWIS readers throughout the West and in particularly the United States and places like New York. And I want to thank you so much for this interview and uh and and I look forward to more of your articles about this. Okay, star.