Nigel Farage: Reform UK would ban Muslim Brotherhood

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has said that his party will ban the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation if it is elected.

Farage made the announcement in a speech on Friday afternoon at the opening of Reform's annual party conference in Birmingham.

The party has consistently topped national opinion polls in the UK during the last several months and is considered a serious contender to lead the government at the next general election, with Farage as prime minister.

He told the conference: “And we will stop dangerous organisations with links to terrorism operating in our country, quite why we have been so gutless about this, both Conservative and Labour, I do not know.

"All across the Middle East, countries have banned and proscribed the Muslim Brotherhood as a dangerous organisation. We will do the very same."

What is the Muslim Brotherhood?

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Cairo in 1928 and is one of the world's largest and best-known political Islam groups.

It has long maintained that it is a peaceful organisation that wishes to participate in politics democratically, but is considered a major threat by many autocratic governments in the Middle East and North Africa.

The organisation is banned in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE

A ban on the Brotherhood in Britain would involve heavily expanding Britain's counter-terrorism efforts.

Earlier this year, the current Labour government proscribed the direct action group Palestine Action, leading to the arrest of hundreds of peaceful protesters. The policy has been heavily criticised, including by the UN.

The proposed Reform policy would likely lead to a serious clampdown on British Muslim civil society organisations, since previous governments have attempted to tie major Muslim groups to Islamism.

In March 2024, the Tory communities secretary, Michael Gove, announced a contentious non-statutory definition of extremism as "the promotion or advancement of an ideology based on violence, hatred or intolerance".

He highlighted the Muslim Association of Britain, Mend and Cage, as well as several far-right groups, as examples of organisations targeted by the definition, suggesting that their activities gave "rise to concern for their Islamist orientation and views".

The three organisations strongly denied that they were extremist, and Gove's plan was dropped by the subsequent Labour government.

Previous attempts to ban Brotherhood

In 2014, the coalition government commissioned a review into the Muslim Brotherhood, which was conducted by John Jenkins, the UK's then-ambassador to Saudi Arabia. It suggested that the organisation had served as a “rite of passage” for violent militants.

The UAE had reportedly lobbied the government to crack down on the Brotherhood in exchange for lucrative arms and oil contracts.

According to the Guardian, several high-profile Emirati figures were involved, but the key lobbying figure was Abu Dhabi's crown prince, Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, popularly known as MbZ in the Gulf.

However, the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC), following its inquiry into the government's policy towards "Political Islam", concluded that political Islamists were a “firewall” against violent extremism and should be engaged with, either when in power or in opposition.

In its responses, the Foreign Office agreed that the vast majority of political Islamists were not involved in violence, but rather were the victims of violence themselves.

Now Farage has put banning the Brotherhood back on the political agenda.