A recent speech by Labour Member of Parliament Jon Trickett at an event hosted by the Islam Channel has raised significant concerns about expanding ties between Britain’s hard-left political circles and Islamist-linked groups.
Trickett, who has represented Normanton and Hemsworth in West Yorkshire since 1996, served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown from 2007 to 2010 and to Lord Peter Mandelson, a former Labour Business Secretary with Epstein links, between 1997 and 1998. He is a member of the Socialist Campaign Group, a hard-left faction within the Labour Party, and was among 36 MPs who nominated Jeremy Corbyn for Labour leadership in 2015.
During his address at the Islam Channel’s annual gala dinner in September 2026, Trickett began with “Assalamu Alaikum” and praised Mohamed Ali Harrath, founder of the Britain-based English-language Islamic television channel. Harrath, a Tunisian activist who co-founded the Tunisian Islamic Front, was convicted in absentia by Tunisian courts on terrorism-related offenses and received a 56-year prison sentence.
Trickett claimed that Muslims in the UK generated £70 billion annually—far exceeding the £15 billion produced by all farmers combined. “You are a very significant player in our economic growth,” he stated, adding that Prime Minister Andy Burnham, whom he said held “very high regard” for the Muslim community, had shown progress on Palestinian issues since becoming leader.
He also denounced Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage’s faction as “extreme right,” declaring, “They [Reform] are our enemies.”
The Islam Channel has faced repeated scrutiny. In 2023, it was fined by Ofcom for broadcasting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Additionally, its presenters have defended the practice of physical punishment within Muslim marriages, a stance that Ofcom noted as acceptable.
Trickett’s involvement deepened when E Media Group, parent company of the Islam Channel, acquired Tribune, the flagship magazine of democratic socialism in the UK. The Socialist Campaign Group is a splinter group of Tribune’s MPs. Ali Harrath now oversees the publication through the newly formed Tribune Media Group, with Trickett appointed to its advisory board as chairman.
The channel has also been linked to extremist figures. In 2011, Harrath was photographed with Ismail Haniyeh, a former Hamas Political Bureau leader who died in 2024 and served as head of the Palestinian National Authority from 2006 to 2014. Haniyeh had previously praised Osama bin Laden following his death in 2011.
