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Seumas Milne fails to help Sadiq Khan’s cause

In recent weeks, Labour’s Sadiq Khan has faced flak over his decision to share platforms with extremists. In a recent Evening Standard article, Khan was criticised for sharing a ‘platform with five Islamic extremists’ at an event organised by Friends of Al-Aqsa. At the 2004 conference titled ‘Palestine — the suffering still goes on’, both Khan and Jeremy Corbyn spoke alongside the event organiser’s founder Ismail Patel — who once said ‘Hamas is no terrorist organisation’ — as well as the Imam Suliman Gani — who says women are subservient to men — and Dr Daud Abdullah, who led a boycott of Holocaust Memorial Day in 2005.

Defending his decision to appear at the Friends of Al-Aqsa event — where women entered through a separate entrance — Khan said he was speaking in his capacity as a human rights lawyer.

So, at a time when Khan appears to be attempting to put some clear water between himself and those at the event, Mr S was curious to discover that Corbyn’s director of strategy appears to have no such concerns.

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