THESE are curious times. The British Left, long the champion of anti-racism and gay rights, is forging deepening bonds with anti-Semitic homophobes. If these were old-style anti-Semitic homophobes the Left would be campaigning to have them locked up. But instead they are Muslim extremists.

What is most unsettling is that the Government, suffering from excessive cultural relativism, is also pandering to Islamic anti-Semitism.

Consider the circumstances surrounding a conference to support the Islamic veil next Monday in London. Ken Livingstone, the mayor, is to open the event, organised by the Assembly for the Protection of the Hijab, of which the guest of honour is Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Dr al-Qaradawi was born in Egypt but lives in Qatar because of his association with the extremist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, of which he is a spiritual leader, and which is banned in several Middle Eastern countries.

The sheikh has used his influential sermons to promote suicide bombing by Palestinians in Israel. Before the Left gets too misty-eyed about suicide bombings, it should remember that it can involve blowing to bits innocent children on buses.

According to BBC Monitoring, Dr al-Qaradawi said last year: “Oh God, destroy the usurper Jews, the vile crusaders and infidels.” He said the killing of the American telecoms engineer Nick Berg by Islamic militants in Iraq, had to be seen “in the right context”, although he has condemned decapitations and the twin towers attacks and suicide bombings outside Israel.

You can get more idea of his views on www.islamonline.net, whose contents are overseen by an editorial co-operative led by Dr al-Qaradawi. Islamonline declares that homosexuality is a “sexual perversion”, for which the penalty should be death. The only question is whether gays should be killed by being thrown off a high cliff, or flogged to death. Gay rights groups and Jewish groups, as well as London ratepayers, have a right to know why Mr Livingstone is choosing to share a platform with him.

Dr al-Qaradawi, who is head of the European Council on Fatwa and Research, is banned from the US, but is a regular visitor to the UK. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has been presented with a dossier of evidence on him, but has not banned him from the UK.

The Home Office is even lending government credibility. Fiona Mactaggart, the Race and Community Cohesion Minister, was also due to share a platform with him, until challenged by a Sunday newspaper. Instead she is just sending a video message of support to the event.

It isn’t the first time that Ms Mactaggart has lent tacit government support to Islamic anti-Semites. Last month, at the opening of the London Islamic Centre, she shared a platform with Sheikh Abd al-Rahman al-Sudais, one of the imams of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the most holy mosque in Islam, who has used his sermons to call for Jews to be killed. According to the CIA, he has said: “Yesterday’s Jews are bad predecessors and today’s Jews are worse successors. They are killers of prophets and scum of the earth. God hurled his indignation on them and made them monkeys and pigs and worshippers of tyrants.”

Sheikh al-Sudais was recently barred from Canada after outcries by Jewish groups. Contrast this with the actions of the UK Government. One is left wondering what sort of race relations Fiona Mactaggart sees herself as minister of.

Dr al-Qaradawi is coming here as a guest of the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), which together with the Socialist Workers Party helped to form the Stop the War Coalition. It openly supports Respect, a political party formed by the former Labour MP George Galloway.

HOWEVER, the Muslim Association is itself already highly controversial. Louise Ellman, one of the few Labour MPs to understand the importance of standing up to Islamic anti-Semitism, last year denounced in Parliament MAB’s public face, Azzam Tamimi, for “preaching hatred against Jews”. She quoted him as saying at a conference in South Africa last year: “Do not call them suicide bombers, call them Shuhada (martyrs). They (Israelis) have guns, we have human bombs. We love death, they love life.”

Despite this, MAB is a member of the umbrella group the Muslim Council of Britain, the voice of moderate Islam in Britain with which the Government holds a running dialogue. The Muslim council has made a big effort to show how moderate it is, which raises the question why it continues to allow MAB to be a member.

The Left has often let concern about offending Muslims take priority over standing up to Islamic extremism. Many decided to attack Salman Rushdie rather than support him when the Ayatollah of Iran urged Muslims to kill him for practising free speech. When the Nigerian journalist Isioma Daniel was issued with death threats and sparked murderous riots last year by suggesting that Muhammad would marry a Miss World contestant, many left-wing British commentators condemned her rather than those perpetrating the violence.

The Government ought instead to be supporting Muslims such as Irshad Manji, a Canadian lesbian TV presenter who has just detailed her struggle with the intolerance of some of her fellow-believers in the courageous book The Trouble with Islam. In it she insists that non-Muslims in the West have a duty to challenge Islamic extremists, rather than support them. “Non-Muslims do the world no favours by pushing the moral mute button as soon as Muslims start speaking,” she says.

It’s a lesson Ms Mactaggart, the British Government, and the British Left should learn.

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