Now Javid to finally outlaw Corbyn’s ‘friends’ Hezbollah

SAJID Javid is due to impose a full ban on the terrorist group Hezbollah.

The Home Secretary’s decision to proscribe the Iran-backed militants will be welcomed by Britain’s Jewish community.

Hezbollah’s military wing has been proscribed here since 2008 but a legal loophole means its political wing is not. This has allowed antiIsrael protesters to openly and legally fly the Lebanese group’s flag on Britain’s streets.

The Islamist organisation, whose green and gold flag features a dagger and an assault rifle, is accused of conducting terrorist attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets. The Cabinet minister’s decision to implement a full ban on Hezbollah, understood to be announced imminently, will draw a stark line between the Tories and Labour.

Jeremy Corbyn has faced repeated questions about his links with figures from Hezbollah, who he described as ‘friends’ during an infamous meeting in Parliament in 2009. A survey found four in ten Jewish people in Britain would ‘seriously consider’ emigrating if he became prime minister.

Well-placed sources dismissed speculation that Mr Javid would make the announcement in his keynote speech at the annual Tory party conference in Birmingham next Tuesday. But the Home Secretary – a staunch ally of the Jewish community – is understood to have committed to ‘decisive action’.

He has seized on Home Office assessments which say Hezbollah ‘is committed to armed resistance to the state of Israel and aims to seize all Palestinian territories and Jerusalem from Israel’.

The appraisal added that ‘its military wing supports terrorism in Iraq and the Palestinian territories.’

Mr Javid is believed to have received strong backing for his decision to outlaw Hezbollah as an illegal terrorist organisation from Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt. Mr Hunt has called the group an ‘outrageous, disgusting’ organisation.

Gideon Falter, of the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, said: ‘Following years of discussion with three successive Home Secretaries on this issue, we are delighted that Sajid Javid has decided to close this loophole and protect the British public.’

Hezbollah is already considered a terror group by the US, Canada, Israel and the Arab League. A Home Office spokesman declined to comment.

‘Protect the British public’