Our new Defence Secretary has wasted no time presenting himself as a patriotic man of action, but that was far from always the case.
In 2004, as president of Cambridge University Students’ Union, Streeting attacked Cambridge colleges’ holdings in Britain’s arms industry as “completely unacceptable”, describing firms including BAE, GKN and Rolls-Royce as “very dubious companies”. He argued that Cambridge’s brand must not “endorse and financially support controversial organisations”. Perhaps one should volunteer to host Streeting’s first ministerial away day.
A youthful bit of campus pacifism can be laughed off, yet Streeting’s later indulgence of MEND – the Muslim political campaign group described by William Shawcross’s review of Prevent as having “a well-established track record of working alongside extremists” – is harder to dismiss. According to John Ware, by April 2018, Streeting had attended nine MEND events since entering Parliament three years earlier.
At some, Streeting received star billing. In November 2016, MEND hosted his “Public Address on Islamophobia” at Ilford’s Fullwell Cross Library. The event was chaired by Vaseem Ahmed, MEND’s group coordinator for Ilford, a man with unconventional ideas about the Middle East. In October 2015, Ahmed shared the infamous cartoon proposing to relocate Israel to America with the approving caption, “This is the real two state solution. Win Win.” When Citizens UK later asked him to delete the post and apologise, Ahmed was secretly recorded insisting: “I ain’t doing nothin’ mate”. He maintained that his post was “100 per cent” not antisemitic and accused those challenging him of “structural Islamophobia”.
Streeting’s defence was that MEND officials had spoken about the importance of tackling antisemitism at every meeting he attended. Perhaps Ahmed had nipped out for some fresh air during those parts. In any case, his Israel-to-America post was already thirteen months old when he chaired a public address bearing the MP’s name.
The following year, Streeting was confronted with an even clearer warning. In November 2017, he attended MEND’s parliamentary launch of Islamophobia Awareness Month after Crispin Blunt, Ed Davey and Joanna Cherry withdrew owing to the “controversy over MEND’s record and claims of links between the organisation and extremist views”. Before the meeting, Streeting told the Jewish Chronicle: “I can not, and will never, support individuals or organisations that seek to, for example, justify attacks on British troops” and promised to engage in his usual “plain-speaking and uncompromising way”.
The reference to British troops was not hypothetical. At the time, Azad Ali was MEND’s director of engagement. In a 2008 blog post, Ali quoted Huthaifa Azzam saying: “If I saw an American or British man wearing a soldier’s uniform inside Iraq I would kill him because that is my obligation.” He unsuccessfully sued Associated Newspapers after the Mail on Sunday and Daily Mail reported that he supported killing British and American troops in Iraq, with Mr Justice Eady describing his claim as having about it “an absence of reality”.
That judgment had been on the public record for seven years when Streeting attended MEND’s parliamentary launch. And what did his promised confrontation amount to? MEND’s own account of the evening says Streeting “stood firm”, dismissed some criticism of the organisation as “unfair and bizarre” and praised its political activities as “good practice”. Tehran’s ayatollahs will be quaking in their boots.
MEND’s founder Sufyan Ismail also spoke that evening. During the 2015 election campaign, Ismail had addressed an audience at Bolton’s Zakariyya Central Mosque, boasting that MEND could become a “kingmaker” in 20 or 30 seats. He contrasted David Cameron’s assurance that British Jews fighting for the IDF would not be prosecuted with the interrogation facing British Muslims who went to Syria to fight Assad. If MEND landed those seats, he asked, would Cameron still have “the audacity to say that to the Muslim community”? He answered his own question: “Not a chance!” These remarks had been public for more than two years when Streeting attended MEND’s Islamophobia Awareness Month event.
Streeting’s taste for questionable company survived ministerial office. In February 2025, he addressed the launch of the UK Muslim Network, a new body intended to channel Muslim opinion into Whitehall. He was there, he stressed, “on behalf of the government” and to acknowledge “with humility that successive governments have not got this relationship right”. Streeting referenced his own wafer-thin majority , promised to defend Muslim political participation and invited his audience to “express your politics at the ballot box”. The electoral arithmetic was hardly buried.
The UK Muslim Network is co-chaired by Qari Asim. Less than three years earlier, the Conservative government had dismissed him as an independent adviser over his role in a campaign against screenings of The Lady of Heaven. The Shia film portrayed Fatima, the Prophet Muhammad’s daughter, as a victim of oppression, but provoked Sunni anger through its hostile depiction of Abu Bakr and Umar, Muhammad’s companions and the first caliphs. In their letter dismissing Asim, the previous Government rightly described the effort to force cinemas to ditch the film as a “campaign to limit free expression” and pointed to “deeply disturbing videos of sectarian chanting and anti-Shia hatred” at protests. Labour, in contrast, decided that 32 months on the naughty step was a sufficient punishment for Asim.
Each time, it’s the same story: controversy comes first, Streeting’s appearance follows, the fault lies with those who object. Streeting is no longer merely responsible for defending his tiny majority; he is responsible for the lives of British troops. They should be able to expect their Defence Secretary to recognise dangerous company before inviting it through the door.