ex-extremist and head of the quilliam foundation maajid nawaaz, had just announced that someone called adam deen (who i don’t know anything about) had just joined the quilliam foundation. maryam namazie, the ex-muslim activist, was frustrated at this appointment, and questioned maajid as to why this person had joined the ranks of the liberal think-tank.

the mentioning of stephen yaxley-lennon, a.k.a. tommy robinson, seemed to have touched a nerve with maajid.

and again:

so from this we’re to understand that maajid never thought or claimed that the former extremist leader of the edl had changed his views. although he has said things which suggest just that.

maajid protests that "changed" here meant changed affiliations. but the apology maajid refers to is this one, which says:

"Pressed as to whether he now believed it was wrong to blame "every single Muslim" for "getting away" with the 7 July bombings, and for calling Islam a fascist and violent religion, he held up his hands and said: "I’m sorry, I’m sorry.""

maajid accepted this apology. in other words, maajid believed that yaxley-lennon had changed his islamophobic views. which explains this tweet:

again, maajid thinks yaxley-lennon used to be islamophobic, but no longer, which confirms that maajid believes yaxley-lennon’s views regarding muslims had changed.

this is pretty straightforward stuff. so why the denial? why accuse people who point this out of making a slur against him?

because, i suspect, there’s a lot at stake: his image. he presents himdelf as a person who understands extremism, how extremists think and what needs to be done to bring them back into the mainstream. so when he incorrectly claims a far-right extremist had changed, and openly declares that "i choose to place my trust in [stephen yaxley-lennon]", it’s all pretty damning stuff. it demonstrates his poor judgement and naivety in these matters. perhaps it’s these same characteristics which led him to become an extremist to begin with.

frankly, i don’t think many people who know much about quilliam take maajid’s work seriously anyway. long before this twitter drama happened, it was clear yaxley-lennon hadn’t reformed and that maajid had no credibility. matthew goodwin summed it up nicely:

"That both Lennon and Quilliam were so aggressive in advertising to the media the apparent conversion and celebrating their publicity on Twitter should speak volumes. The dignified and difficult work of counter-extremism was not really there, replaced by an uncomfortable descent into self-promotion with little evidence of substantive change."