British Brotherhood: Financial and cultural expansion exploiting troubled standards of politicians

Nahla Abdel Moneim

The international Brotherhood organization depends on its European branches as a source of media and economic promotion, taking advantage of the laws granted to organizations with social and humanitarian work. That dependence has increased with the blockade imposed on them by some Arab countries that accuse the organization of running an international network to finance terrorist groups and cooperate with them.

The terrorist group’s presence in the United Kingdom is the most prominent and widespread in the European Union, to the point that some even call the capital “Londonistan”, in reference to Afghanistan, due to the expansion of terrorist groups within it, which pushed the country to occupy advanced positions annually on the metrics of attacks carried out in the region.

English confusion of terror standards

The expansion of the Brotherhood within Britain threatens the entire region with the spread of an ideology that may harm the values ​​of democracy and political pluralism in which the Europeans believe, but this expansion also took from British standards a variable of polarization and reinforcement. The policy of confusion with which the UK government deals with the spread of Islamist groups in the Middle East and the whole world is inciting the Brotherhood to build a wider kingdom in Europe, in cooperation with Turkey, whose current government aspires to restore the old Ottoman Empire, while the Brotherhood does not recognize national borders as foundations of rule.

Among the dangerous examples of political confusion in dealing with extremist groups is the consideration of carrying weapons and the use of ammunition in the countries of the Middle East as an armed opposition, contrary to the constitutional norm of not allowing individuals to form violent groups within states and allowing weapons only for the security services.

The United Kingdom has suffered from this confusion. In November 2019, the British parliament announced dropping the Libyan Fighting Group from the list of terrorist organizations, considering it as an armed opposition that was struggling to get rid of former Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi. But one of the group’s members, Khairi Saadallah, committed an attack on June 20, 2020 in the Reading region, which means that carrying weapons remains terrorism, regardless of the variables associated with the national scene.

However, what Europe considers an armed opposition in the Middle East, it completely rejects in its own region, and this applies to the Spanish refusal against the separation of the Barcelona or Catalonia region from the central government in Madrid, besieging the demonstrations calling for this, and other manifestations in the same context.

Consequently, Britain’s dealings with the file of Islamist groups opened the door for the Brotherhood to develop its presence in the region and to spread social, humanitarian and cultural organizations, as well as media institutions it established to redraw a mental image of its elements and ideas among European Muslims and others.

Insights about the group in Britain

The Hudson Institute said in one of its research papers on the presence of the group in Britain that the organizational presence of the group is the most dynamic among the Muslim population in the country, as the Brotherhood was able to build an interconnected network of service institutions of different orientations to urge the members of the Muslim community to embrace its ranks.

The study indicated that the most important characteristic of the Brotherhood organizations in Britain and in Europe in general is their interaction with the current events on the scene with regard to Muslims in an attempt to show their eagerness to bond with citizens. It pointed out that since extremist groups see the Brotherhood as the main source of Islamism, it is the most dangerous file related to the group in Europe.

Through the Brotherhood’s ideas and theories about governance promoted by the group’s late theoretician, Sayyid Qutb, Hizb ut-Tahrir was founded by Taqi al-Din al-Nabhani, which is banned by some European countries, led by Germany, but is still mobilizing its elements to establish a caliphate in the European Union.

Most prominent Brotherhood organization in Britain

The Brotherhood was able to establish financial and charitable networks that support it in the UK. The most prominent of these is the Islamic Relief Organization, which was established in Birmingham in 1984, although it has multiple branches in Europe that are used to collect donations and disburse them as aid and development projects.

The financial institution Nile Shore Trust, established by the Brotherhood leader Ibrahim Munir in London in 2010, is one of the modern models in the Brotherhood’s chain of control over economic projects in the country.

Meanwhile, the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) is one of the most important Brotherhood organizations in the country. It was founded in 1997 by Kamal El Helbawy, who is now dissident from the group due to differences over political views. The Hudson Institute says it is the most dangerous organization in the country due to its sponsorship of the cultural aspect.