New Middlesbrough

Mosque Weathers

Political Storm

Masjid Maryam, Middlesbrough

Scott Hunter

24 February 2025

The official opening of Middlesbrough’s new mosque took place yesterday, having weathered a storm over its proposal to bring controversial preacher Mohamed Hoblos to speak at the event. Hoblos will not now be there, the invitation having been withdrawn last week amid calls for him to be banned from the UK.  Having never heard of Hoblos before, we set out to discover what all the fuss was about, who wanted him banned altogether, and whether there was any real justification for this.

Hoblos we found fairly unpleasant. However, some of his detractors have not felt the need for accuracy in the criticism they have levelled against him. And, in some cases, their motives are suspect.

Who wanted him banned?

Tory MP, Bob Blackman, asked for it in a question in the House of Commons. Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Philp, wrote to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, to ask for the ban. Tees Valley mayor, Ben Houchen, also wrote to the Home Secretary to ask for the ban. Reports on these appeared in the rightwing press, the Mail, the Express, and the Daily Telegraph. Was this just outrage on the right?

The surprise entry in the list of those who wanted him banned was the Muslim Women’s Network UK (MWNUK). MSEC Labour MP, Luke Myer, did not ask outright for the ban, but, in a Facebook comment, approved of Ben Houchen’s actions.

Has Hoblos Been Banned?

No. But his invitation to speak in Middlesbrough has been withdrawn by those organizing the event at Maryam Mosque. In a statement, the organisers acknowledged the concerns raised in various quarters and deferred to them, while also (correctly) observing that Hoblos had visited the UK on many previous occasions without controversy.

What was the objectors’  issue?

MWNUK is a national charity, that, according to its website, works to “ to improve the social justice and equality for Muslim women and girls”. Its report on Hoblos states:

“Our review of his lectures on YouTube reveals deeply troubling statements. Hoblos has claimed that, in the eyes of God, a person who commits murder, rape—including child rape—and other heinous crimes (even on a daily basis) is better than someone who does not commit such acts but fails to pray. He further reinforces this by stating that even missing a single prayer makes someone worse than a murderer, rapist, paedophile, or terrorist.

We also reviewed his lectures, which was a fairly painful experience. He rambles. And his pet topics come up over and over again in his lectures, his opinion of Muslims who don’t pray being one of them. He gets his point across better in some lectures than in others, it’s fair to say, and it doesn’t always come across as inflammatory.

What always does come across as inflammatory, however, is his belief in old-fashioned patriarchy, and his unreconstructed misogyny is loud and clear. So, when MWNUK asserts that his views do not align with mainstream Muslim opinion in the UK, it is probably fair criticism (excluding the opinion of those who invited him to Middlesbrough, that is). And they are concerned that his views reinforce damaging stereotypes about Muslim communities.

The fact is, however, that the incident has unleashed more than damaging stereotypes about Muslim communities. Enter the right-wing press.

The Press and the ‘Hate Preacher’

Charles Hymas’s report on Hoblos in the Daily Telegraph throws caution to the winds with its headline “Hate preacher who said paedophiles better than those who miss prayers invited to speak in UK.”

This is the beginning of a slippery slope, where the rationale is that, once a person has been identified as in some way undesirable, the need to advertise that overrides the need for accurate reporting. The Telegraph does what the papers often do when attempting to misrepresent the facts – they put the inaccurate bits in subtitles and appended to photos, but not in the text itself. So, for example, it appears as if the Home Office has banned Hoblos, when, in fact, it hasn’t. A slogan in a photo makes it look as if Hoblos is promoting Hamas, when there is no direct evidence that he has done so. The report makes no mention of his influence reinforcing damaging stereotypes about Muslim communities.

On the other hand, it accurately notes that Hoblos had previously been denied entry to Germany and the Netherlands. In January 2024, Dutch Newspaper NL Times, reported

“The possible arrival of Hoblos in the Netherlands was also poorly received by the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament. The ChristenUnie, SGP, BBB, VVD and CDA urged the Ministry of Justice and Security to enforce an entry ban against the Australian-Lebanese man who glorifies the violence by the radical Islamic Palestinian movement Hamas, and also calls on other Muslims to fully support it.”

He was also banned from entering Germany. But reporting on that is rather more nuanced. Here is the report from the News Programme, Tagesschau from January 2024:

“According to Berlin Senate reports, Hoblos’ often very emotional lectures have, in the past, also contained Islamist sentiment. However, there are no know expressions of approval of violence or calls to violence by Hoblos” (translation ours)

This, then contradicts the statements made in the Dutch Parliament, but also some made in the House of Commons and then repeated in the press. Both Bob Blackman and Chris Philps refer to him as a ‘hate preacher’. We took this to infer the expression of contempt for British values and British culture on the one hand, and the promotion of jihad on the other. His lectures recorded on You Tube exhibit neither of these, however.

Does it really matter that these MPs have embroidered the truth a little, especially given that we agree that this person’s opinions are distasteful? We think so. We think so because of the way their expressed opinion is then amplified and distorted by others.

Hoblos’ lectures may be painful to listen to, but they reveal him as a religious conservative, not a radical preacher. 

Statements by Blackman and Philps are repeated in the national press. Labour MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, Luke Myer, is named in Jewish News (incorrectly) as the MP leading calls for Hoblos to be banned from the UK.

What we should add in defence of these MPs, however, is that, by speaking in parliament, they raised their concerns in what is, for them, the appropriate forum (the Maryam Mosque is not within Luke Myer’s constituency). That leaves Ben Houchen as the only politician for whom the issue is on his patch.

Grandstand

Houchen, we should point out, does not refer to Hoblos as a ‘hate preacher’. He contrasts Hoblos’ extremism with the ‘strong moral values’ of the people of Teesside, however. This he puts together in a letter to the Home Secretary. Excerpts from it are printed in the national press. The letter is reprinted in full here:

We do not know how Tommy Robinson Admin got hold of this letter. We do know, however, that Houchen enjoys a cult following among the right and the far right in the Tees Valley (and possibly, beyond):

When Hoblos’ invitation was withdrawn by the event organisers, community Facebook page, Teesside Connected, printed their statement. It attracted similar comments:

Graham Sizer did not, in the event, take his own advice. We turned up just after the doors opened to find large numbers of people arriving for the event, none of them protestors. The situation may have been very different had the invitation to Hoblos had not been withdrawn, however.



Quiet Diplomacy

The Home Office did not ban Hoblos from entering the country, yet the invitation was withdrawn by the event organisers, nonetheless. When we asked how this had come about, we were told that there had been some subtle diplomacy. We asked if Houchen had been involved in those efforts. We took the spluttering that ensued as an indication that he hadn’t.

So, the mayor wrote to the Home Secretary to ask for Hoblos to be banned, circulated it to the media, and one of his supporters had it posted on Tommy Robinson’s X account, but Houchen himself made no effort to engage the event organisers. That is tantamount to incitement. It failed, but instigating a moral panic is damaging and divisive in its own right.

Hoblos is an unpleasant character, and, in our view, the event organisers were ill-advised to invite him in the first place. It is some relief, however, that they were open to persuasion. The same cannot be said of those on Houchen’s social media who supporting banning Hoblos from the UK altogether.

Six months after the Middlesbrough riots, Houchen’s actions risked initiating further unrest. And banning Hoblos would have handed those elements an opportunity to claim a victory. The simple withdrawal of the invitation prevented them from doing so.

As for those who have been congratulating Houchen on his action, we are reminded of a report we published a few years ago after local stand-up comedian, Roy Chubby Brown, was banned from performing at Sheffield City Hall, while a pre-existing ban in Middlesbrough has just been lifted by then mayor, Andy Preston (has-roy-chubby-brown-become-a-champion-of-free-speech) . Chubby’s supporters were quick to invoke ‘if you find him offensive, don’t buy a ticket’ in his defence, while we pointed out that the City Council hadn’t banned him from performing in Sheffield altogether; it objected only to his being allowed to perform in a publicly-subsidised venue. And to be fair to Hoblos, he wasn’t going to be performing in a publicly-subsidised venue.

It is, finally, of some surprise to us that MWNUK, when asking for the preacher to be banned, did not factor in that Muslim preachers, regardless of their politics, are an easy target for the far right. The far right does not need any encouragement, and its proponents are happy to subject both Muslim women and men to abuse.