Far-right violence 'clear danger in UK,' says MCB

London, July 26, IRNA – Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) here Monday criticized UK government for ignoring threat from right-wing Christians and nationalists in wake of Norway suffering its worst ever terrorist atrocities.

“Violence from far-right extremists has been a clear and present danger to the British streets for too long,” the secretary general of Britain's largest mainstream Muslim organisation, Farooq Murad said.

“It has often been ignored at worst or paid lip-service to at best as policymakers focus on violence emanating from a handful of Muslims,” Murad warned in a copy of a statement obtained by IRNA.

The MCB said it was “encouraged” that Prime Minister David Cameron indicated that the issue was being discussed at a meeting of the National Security Council, but reminded him about the previous response of his party to warnings about the wilder fringes of the far right feeding on a diet of Islamphobia.

“Wheneven (party chair) Baroness Warsi voiced her concern about the rise of Islamphobia earlier this year, she was roundly criticized by her party and by the usual commentators who have made anti-Muslim prejudice the subject of their columns,” Murad said.

“Indeed it was these very same commentators and advisers to government who were quick to say that these senseless attacks emanated from Muslims, without consulting the facts,' he said about the initial attempts to blame Muslims for the Norwegian atrocities./end