Anti-Hamas peer ditched by housing board
MICHAEL GOVE has criticised a housing association for removing Lord Austin, a former Labour minister, as its chairman after the peer tweeted derogatory remarks about Hamas.
Midland Heart said on Friday that it had suspended Lord Austin and arranged a meeting “to discuss his removal from the board” after the peer, a former adviser to Gordon Brown, ridiculed a UN body’s claim to have been unaware that Hamas was operating underneath its Gaza headquarters. Midland Heart made the decision after a campaign against Lord Austin by Mend, a campaign group described in a review of the Government’s counter-extremism programme as having “a well-established track record of working alongside extremists” and of “seeking to undermine the state’s considerable efforts to tackle all hate crime”.
Mr Gove, the Housing Secretary, said he was seeking an “urgent meeting and explanation” from Midland Heart, which provides affordable homes across the Midlands and receives millions of pounds in public funding.
Mend claimed that Lord Austin, one of Parliament’s most vociferous campaigners against anti-Semitism, had demonstrated “Islamophobia” when he ridiculed the United Nations Relief and Works Agency’s claim that it had no knowledge of Hamas’s presence under its gaza offices, saying: “Everyone, better safe than sorry: before you go to bed, nip down and check you haven’t inadvertently got a death cult of Islamist murderers and rapists running their operations downstairs. It’s easily done.”
During a backlash over the tweet last week, he was asked by Midland Heart to remove the post, and tweeted: “It was not my intention to offend anyone and I have deleted it.
“As I have written and said many times – including in a national newspaper today – the vast majority of Muslims are just as appalled by racism and terrorism as everyone else.”
The Mend criticism appeared to centre on Lord Austin’s description of Hamas as “Islamist murderers”.
Lord Austin has received dozens of abusive and in some cases threatening messages from individuals on X, formerly Twitter, since the Mend campaign began. Mr Gove said: “I am deeply concerned by Midland Heart’s actions in seeking to remove Lord Austin from their board. I will be writing to the board to demand an urgent meeting and explanation.
“Not only is Ian a champion for affordable housing, he has spent his career fighting racism. Islam is a religion of peace, but Islamists – including the proscribed terrorist organisation Hamas – are extremists characterised by violence and oppression who seek to undermine our democratic values.”
Lord Austin, 58, is a former housing minister who worked for a housing association in his 20s and was appointed to lead Midland Heart’s board last year.
He quit Labour in 2019 over its “culture of anti-Semitism” under Jeremy Corbyn and is now a non-affiliated peer.
He said: “The word ‘Islamists’ is very clearly a reference not to Muslim people but to extremists. I have said and written repeatedly that the vast majority of Muslims are just as appalled by racism and extremism as anyone else.
“I am really shocked and disappointed that this has happened as a result of politically motivated bullies orchestrating a malicious campaign on social media to smear me by deliberately misinterpreting my comments and trying to undermine a lifetime’s work fighting racism.”
Mend has rejected claims that it has links to extremists and described the review of Prevent as “mendacious”.
“To rely on this review to accuse us of anything is libelous,” Mend claimed in a statement. It said Lord Austin’s post “was tweeted with no context and could plausibly be seen to be talking about some Muslims in Britain. Lord Austin’s deletion of the tweet clearly signifies he can see how insulting it was”.
Gove condemns Lord Austin’s removal from Midland Heart role over Gaza tunnels comment