This is why being banned from entering the UK is not the moral stigma that many on the Left would like you to assume it to be. The fact is that the UK Home Office is completely cowed by Leftist and Islamic pressure groups inside the country. Those groups brought the full weight of their influence to bear so as to achieve the banning of Pamela Geller and me, with the objective of demonstrating that the UK was just as committed to fighting non-Muslim as well as Muslim “extremists.” Of course, the idea that resisting jihad makes one the equivalent of a jihadi is monstrously ridiculous, but that for another day.
This short list shows that who gets into Britain and who doesn’t is based entirely on who has friends and political allies in high places, and who doesn’t.
“As the petition to ban Donald Trump reaches 400,000, here’s who has been let into Britain,” by John Chapman, Express, December 11, 2015:
THE petition to ban Donald Trump from Britain comes despite violent Islamic extremists being allowed to peddle their hate-filled mantras here for many years.
Among their number are:
Shady Al-Sulieman
An Australian cleric, he is not banned from the UK despite his extreme views.
In 2013 British thinktank The Henry Jackson Society warned that there was a case for excluding him from the UK for his support of jihad and Islamist insurgents around the world, including those fighting against British soldiers in Afghanistan.
Muhammad Al-Arifi
A Saudi Arabian cleric finally banned from entering the UK in June 2014 over his calls for jihad in Syria.
He had entered the UK on a number of previous occasions, and is believed to have preached at a mosque in Cardiff attended by several young men who later travelled to join Islamic State.
Zakir Naik
An Indian cleric, Naik was banned from entering the UK in 2010.
This was due to his suggestion that “all Muslims should be terrorists” and a speech in which he appeared to support Osama Bin Laden.
He has addressed the Oxford Union via video-link.
Omar Bakri Muhammad
Now banned from the UK, was known as the “Tottenham Ayatollah” during his 20 years in London and called on young Muslims to join Al Qaeda.
His preaching is thought to have radicalised Muslims including the killers of Lee Rigby. He fled Britain after the 7/7 bombings in fear he could be arrested for his teachings.
Earlier this year Jewish campaigners hit out after Scotland Yard refused to investigate claims that Holocaust deniers from across the globe descended on the UK to promote anti-semitism at a secret rally.
The group of right-wing extremists, Nazi sympathisers and their supporters allegedly heard speakers unleash vile rants in which Jews were described as the “enemy” and “children of darkness”.
The Campaign Against Anti-Semitism said in April: “Celebration of Nazism in 2015 is an affront to Britain and its proud history of standing against Nazism. These speakers from abroad should have been barred from entering the UK in the first place, just as other hate preachers have been.”