Terror think tank in funding crisis

The anti-extremist think tank Quilliam has issued an emergency appeal for donations following the slashing of its Home Office grant.

The organisation was founded in 2008 by two former members of the radical Islamist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Maajid Nawaz and Ed Husain. It has forged a reputation as a high-profile counter-balance to established organisations such as the Muslim Council of Britain. Quilliam's original funding from the Middle East was withdrawn after the leadership criticised fatwas backing suicide bombings in Israel.

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EDL has 'left BNP a mere sideshow'

The head of Britain's leading anti-fascist organisation has said the English Defence League has replaced the British National Party as the major force on the far right of British politics.

Nick Lowles of Searchlight said the BNP had become a "sideshow" since the crushing defeat of its leader Nick Griffin in Barking at this year's general election.

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Finally, Britain to end arrest threat to visiting Israelis

Measures to stop magistrates issuing arrest warrants for foreign politicians and military figures accused of war crimes could be introduced as early as next week.

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Why anti-extremist intervention so important in Britain

Nick Lowles, the editor of anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, and tireless organiser of the Hope Not Hate campaign to oppose the BNP, has made an important stand this week that could mark a watershed in the fight against extremism in Britain.

By publishing a blog condemning the Islamist thugs of Muslims Against Crusades, who called last Thursday for the formation of a Muslim Waffen SS division, he has identified the common politics of the Islamic extreme right and the Islamophobic English Defence League.

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Searchlight takes on the Islamic extremists

The anti-fascist publication Searchlight, which was behind the "Hope Not Hate" campaign to stop the British National Party in east London, is to expand its operations to oppose the Islamophobic English Defence League and Islamic extremism itself.

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Support may come as surprise

When I mentioned to a Jewish journalist friend that I was off to the Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel lunch, he said he didn't know there were any. Other people in the political world joked it would be an intimate occasion, such is the general consensus about Lib Dem hostility to Israel.

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Mazaltov. But now time for Project Ed

Congratulations are due to Ed Miliband and his partner Justine Thornton on the birth of their second son. But as the Labour leader prepares for two weeks of paternity leave, Project Ed has begun in earnest.

Since he expressed his opposition to Israel's blockade of Gaza and the boarding of the Turkish flotilla during his leadership acceptance speech, Labour Friends of Israel have been working hard to mend fences.

In his interview with the JC last week, Mr Miliband made it clear that he condemns Hamas rocket attacks on civilian targets. This is a start.

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Analysis: Islamist threats: this time, the real thing

It should be the conspiracy theorist's dream scenario. Just as the coalition is being held to its promises to dismantle the Labour government's security state, a parcel bomb is found on board a cargo plane at a British airport. There was a time, before the attacks of July 7 2005, when some of us still gave credence to the idea that the British state was overhyping the terror threat in order to scare us into accepting infringements of civil liberties. How interesting that no one is suggesting that the Yemeni parcel bombs are anything other than very real.

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Gove wins plaudits for defence of Israel

Education Secretary Michael Gove told British supporters of Israel this week that human rights activists and politicians were wrong to use the word "disproportionate" when talking about Israel's military response to threats to its security.

His comments will raise eyebrows among his colleagues, not least Foreign Secretary William Hague, who described Israel's assault on Lebanon in 2006 in precisely those terms.

Advocacy organisations in Britain, including Conservative Friends of Israel, have subsequently worked hard to persuade Tory politicians not to use such incendiary language.

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Ed Miliband: my door is open

Ed Miliband has said his door is always open to the Jewish community and urged people not to see his critical comments about Gaza and the Turkish flotilla as hostile to Israel. The first Jewish leader of the Labour Party told the JC that he recognised he has some work to do to reassure some in the community: "There is a task for me to get to know the Jewish community better as the leader of the Labour Party... and there's a task for the community to get to know me."

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How political Islam got the public vote

Political Islam or Islamism, as it is sometimes known, has finally entered the mainstream of British politics. The election of Lutfur Rahman as Mayor of Tower Hamlets, the new government's decision to send a minister to attend Islam Channel's Global Peace and Unity conference, and the news that Tony Blair's sister-in-law has converted to Islam, demonstrate that a radical strain of totalitarian Islam has become acceptable to a significant proportion of the political classes.

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Analysis: Tories mend fences as Labour digs holes

Change is always unsettling and this season of political conferences has ushered in all the uncertainty that inevitably follows a general election. Fringe meetings at the Conservative Party conference were infused with an atmosphere of near- panic as desperate lobbyists scrambled for the ear of ministers, while trying to second-guess the coalition plans in advance of the comprehensive spending review.

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