Ahmad Thomson, from the Association of Muslim Lawyers, is an adviser to the British government on issues concerning Muslims. He holds extreme views that are, I fear, more mainstream among Muslims than we would like.
Mr Thomson wrote a book in 1994 in which he said Freemasons and Jews controlled the governments of Europe and America and described the claim that six million Jews died in the Holocaust as a "big lie". In The Next World Order, Mr Thomson, a Muslim convert who was born Martin Thomson in Rhodesia, wrote: "When the majority of people in a predominantly Christian society cease to worship God, the result is fascism.
"When the people in a predominantly Jewish society cease to worship God, the result is either communism or capitalism. A predominantly Christian society is concerned primarily with establishing a political ideology, whilst a predominantly Jewish society is concerned primarily with establishing an economic system."
This, he suggested, led to the rise of Adolf Hitler. Mr Thomson, who was called to the bar in 1979, wrote: "The fascism of Hitler was the Christian element in the increasingly "Jewish" environment in which he and his followers found themselves."
He also wrote that the Jews have no right to live in "the Holy Land" because they are not a pure race and therefore not the true biblical Israelites and that Saddam was used as an excuse for US troops - "including thousands of Jews" - to occupy Saudi Arabia.
A Government source said: "It is by talking to people with varying views that we find out what the range of opinions is. It doesn't mean we agree with what they are saying."
Good grief. Would the British government even consider consulting with a non-Muslim with such views? I think the swastika would be a bit off-putting to any serious person, so somehow I doubt that.
