I’ve written and commentated extensively on here and wherever else I can about the left wing, open borders and pro-Islam community umbrella group Citizens UK. They are a group that is itself and by way of who and what they associate themselves with that could reasonably be described as dodgy. I have put a number of links below to previous stories which I have written on the subject of Citizens UK. I would strongly advise readers of this piece to read the links below to get some idea as to the nature and connections of Citizens UK.
I first encountered them in about 2006/2007 when they had managed to get their tentacles into one of Britain’s smaller Jewish congregational movements, Liberal Judaism (LJ). Citizens UK had gained the support of a number of influential Rabbonim who were pushing Citizens UK as a major force multiplier for social action. As many might know tapping into an organisation with a larger network can give small actions and smaller organisations a greater impact and this was how the association between LJ and Citizens UK was sold to the ordinary ‘Jews in the pews’.
For those who do not know the granular details of what I’m talking about here are some of those details about LJ and Citizens UK. LJ has had a long and at times admirable record for encouraging its congregants to help their local communities or help to make the world a better place. The problem with such a desire or a policy is that it is all too easy for questionable groups, in this case Citizens UK, to suborn such desires and such organisational cultures to their own ends and this is what happened.
Citizens UK managed, via their schmoozing of key members of LJ staff and their Rabbinate, to get LJ to cleave extremely tightly to Citizens UK and Citizens UK campaigns. This in my view led some LJ Rabbonim and congregations to get involved in some extremely divisive and counterproductive political campaigns run by Citizens UK, such as ‘refugees welcome’. Biblical verses such as Deuteronomy 10:19 which reads in the JPS translation as: “Love ye therefore the stranger; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt’ were politically perverted by Rabbonim to refer to ‘refugees’ rather than what the text means which is to treat equally all those who find themselves residing in the Land of Israel, because the Jews were once strangers in an oppressive land.
At this time there were Rabbonim who had drunk deeply of Citizens UK’s mixture of Marxist and Islamicist Kool-Aid so much that I half expected some of these Rabbonim to start selling copies of the Socialist Worker newspaper from the Bimah. Citizens UK was so deeply embedded in LJ at the time that LJ congregants were told by some Rabbonim that when it came to social action ‘Citizens UK are the only game in town’.
Whilst the overt links between Citizens UK and LJ are less visible than they once were there’s still some links between the two organisations. However, time, the departure of Citizens UK’s cheerleaders from positions of authority in LJ and a growing acknowledgment of realism about the world, brought on in part because of the after affects of the 7/10 Pogrom, may have made Citizens UK less influential than it once was in LJ. Despite this toning down of the overtness in the association with Citizens UK, congregants in LJ are going to need to take an active interest in how their organisation is run if the situation regarding LJ and Citizens UK links earlier this century is not to be repeated.
But it’s not just small religious movements that Citizens UK has a baleful influence on. It is also political parties and Government. Citizens UK have for the last decade or more played a long game with the Uniparty parties. Citizens UK have held many meetings over this time with politicians and prospective politicians from Labour, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats. Citizens UK have used these meetings to convince those either already in Parliament, or headed for it, to back causes close to the heart of Citizens UK.
This long term long game of convincing politicians to back Citizens UK’s worldview is apparently, according to Ameer Kotecha over at The Critic magazine, reaping results in the form of the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s plan to offer a ‘golden ticket’ for migrants who would be sponsored to enter the UK by ‘community groups’. Knowing what I know about Citizens UK, their modus operandi and the connections between Citizens UK and some quite extremism linked mosques, I have grave doubts about the sort of scheme that Citizens UK appears to have had influence on the Home Office over.
Mr Kotecha opened his piece with a damning indictment of Mahmood’s plan for ‘sponsored’ ‘refugees’.
Mr Kotecha said:
“It is hard to think Britain’s asylum system could become ever more dysfunctional. And yet, not content with sticking with a broken system that should be entirely swept away, the government has discovered a way to make it worse.
In keeping with Burnham’s new “safe and legal routes” as an alternative to Channel crossings, the government will soon allow communities, universities and employers to sponsor refugees to come to Britain.”
Mr Kotecha is correct here. This new idea will make a bad and dysfunctional asylum system even worse, for Britons that is, even worse. Mr Kotecha also discerns the hand of Citizens UK in this madcap and dangerous scheme.
Mr Kotecha added:
“Where has this harebrained idea come from? Predictably there has been an energetic NGO campaign behind it. Citizens UK is one of the charities which has spent years lobbying ministers and parliamentarians to institute such a scheme. Charming hypothetical sponsors it lists for illustration include “a sports club welcoming an athlete displaced by conflict” and “a company employing displaced skilled workers” (aren’t these people meant to be here for their safety rather than a job?). It will be interesting to see how many of those given the golden ticket are those suggested by “a church supporting persecuted Christians” rather than Palestinians with a hearty dollop of anti-Semitism.
Interestingly, Citizens UK launched its refugee sponsorship initiative in 2017 at the East London Mosque Trust. A natural choice, perhaps, given the mosque shares with Citizens UK a mutual trustee in Dr Mahera Ruby. Dr Ruby might wish to streamline her extracurricular commitments, given the East London Mosque Trust was last year served with an Official Warning by the Charity Commission for “failing to responsibly manage charity funds” following the loss of £1 million. But more to the point, suppose the mosque sought to sponsor named refugees under this new scheme. On what conceivable basis should an individual’s chances of admission to Britain be improved on account of enjoying the backing of a well-connected mosque? “
Mr Kotecha asks some interesting questions here. The author also goes on to list the many potential failures of this scheme some moral and some political. The existence of this scheme, pushed for by Citizens UK which is extremely friendly with the organisation behind one of Britain’s most powerful and extremism linked mosques, the East London Mosque, could have profound negative outcomes for Britain. We could be seeing a situation where extremism linked mosques sponsor entrants who are themselves linked to Islamic extremism. Rather than help those in genuine need this scheme could end up as a chain migration route for jihadists and their families. That’s the very last thing that Britain needs at the moment.
Mr Kotecha has done us all a great service with this article outlining just how mad this scheme is and also how some very questionable ‘community groups’ have pushed for this scheme. Please go and give it a read via the link below.
Links
Labour’s migrant golden ticket
https://thecritic.co.uk/labours-golden-ticket-for-migrants/
Deuteronomy 10 (JPS 1917 translation)
https://biblehub.com/jps/deuteronomy/10.htm
Posts on Citizens UK (Reverse chronological order from publication date)
https://www.fahrenheit211.net/2018/07/05/citizens-uk-and-a-very-loony-left-rabbi-gob-off-again/
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