The British government allowed Islamic bookshops selling “extremist” material to sponsor overseas workers on Skilled Worker visas.
| PULSE POINTS |
❓ WHAT HAPPENED: Islamic bookshops in the United Kingdom have been granted the ability to sponsor “Skilled Worker” immigration visas, despite selling extremist material. 📰 DETAIL: The bookshops include texts which are classed as radicalization material by the British authorities. One of the books sold at the Islamic bookshops, Milestones by Sayidd Qutb, a prominent figure from the Muslim Brotherhood, opposes “world Jewry” and calls for “physical power and jihad” to overthrow Western governments. Qutb’s works also call for jihad to be “carried throughout the earth to the whole of mankind” and claim Jewish people “try to destroy all values and all that is sacred to mankind.” Another work sold at such bookshops, The Fundamentals of Tawheed by Islamic cleric Bilal Philips, states that “un-Islamic government must be sincerely hated and despised.” Philips’s works also support Muslim men beating their wives. It is estimated that dozens of visas have been issued since the previous Conservative government to staff the bookshops. However, despite such material being classed as “extremist” by inspectors from Britain’s Prison Service, it is not illegal to purchase and remains available on major platforms. 💬 KEY QUOTE: “It’s a perfect illustration of 14 years of Tory failure: rather than doctors and engineers, we brought in staff for Islamic shops selling books on ‘jihad’. It is beyond belief that the Home Office did not realize this. It has failed in its basic function of vetting visa sponsors for the public good. There should be an immediate investigation into how this has happened, removal of sponsorship powers, and revocation of all visas granted.” – Lee Anderson, Member of Parliament and Chairman of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party 🎯 IMPACT: Britain’s Skilled Worker visa, which is equivalent to the United States’ H-1B visa, has long been controversial. Critics have accused the visa of using a very broad definition of “skilled” work, far beyond the way successive governments have advertised it as a means to admit medical professionals, scientists, and technologists. The decision to allow Islamic bookshops to sponsor overseas workers coincided with the so-called Boriswave, an unprecedented wave of mass immigration into Britain under former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. New Labour Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, is reportedly planning to scrap planned changes to “indefinite leave to remain” rights and permit the Boriswave migrants to stay permanently. |
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