Quotes from Mehdi Hasan

There is very little chance of the modern Republican Party putting the national interest above their own partisan interests.

The French elites' strategy of trying to defeat the Le Pens by aping their rhetoric, stealing their policies, and pandering to their voters has been a political and moral failure.

The inconvenient truth that our lazy media elites do so much to ignore is that Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders, and Warren are much closer in their views to the vast majority of ordinary Americans than the Bloombergs or the Bidens. They are the true centrists, the real moderates; they represent the actual political middle.

Shortly after he became the first Muslim to attend cabinet, I urged Sadiq Khan to be prepared. The Islamophobes, the new McCarthyites, would at some stage come after him. He laughed it off. Yet it was only a matter of time.

The rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria has been a disaster for the public image of Islam - and a boon for the Islamophobia industry.

I've lost count of the number of websites that try to 'out' every Muslim in public life as an extremist or Islamist of some shape or form.

Republicans don't give a damn about anti-Semitism. They just don't care.

Lampooning racism by reproducing brazenly racist imagery is a pretty dubious satirical tactic.

Have you ever been called an Islamist? How about a jihadist or a terrorist? Extremist, maybe? Welcome to my world. It's pretty depressing.

My fundamental concern about the role of faith groups in providing social provision is democratic: how do we hold them to account? To whom are they responsible? How do we, the public, the recipients of welfare, punish them if they make mistakes or become corrupt?

The state exists to serve and protect every citizen, regardless of colour, creed, race or religion - and the welfare state should exist to and protect the populace in the same non-discriminatory and universal manner.

Deficit, deficit, deficit. The political and media elites are obsessed with the D-word.

I am a believing and practising Muslim - but I am also a social democrat.

None of us believes in an untrammelled right to free speech. We all agree there are always going to be lines that, for the purposes of law and order, cannot be crossed; or for the purposes of taste and decency, should not be crossed. We differ only on where those lines should be drawn.

Why shouldn't 16-year-olds who pay taxes and drive not be allowed to vote?

To be clear, no one is saying there weren't any legitimate economic grievances in Trumpland, nor is anyone claiming that the economy played no role whatsoever. The point, however, is that it wasn't the major motivating factor for most Trump voters - or, at least, that's what we learn when we bother to study those voters. Race trumped economics.

In theory, the filibuster helps whichever party is in the minority in the Senate. In practice, it is the Republicans who have disproportionately used it to engage in cynical and anti-democratic obstructionism whenever they find themselves in the minority.

Billionaires and corporations buy and sell politicians, while citizens struggle to exercise their right to vote or hold their elected representatives to account.

The reality is that far-right extremism is no longer dominated by loners.

I have a long history of defending, and promoting, free speech and open debate - especially (especially!) within Muslim communities.

Are we willing and able to stand up to Islamophobia on days when there are not brutal terrorist attacks on Muslims in mosques?

The terrorists may want to try and legitimize their violence by cynically appealing to Islamic motifs or doctrines, but there is no reason the rest of us should help them do it.

Social media has emboldened an army of online Islamophobes; in the real world, mosques have been firebombed and politicians line up to condemn Muslim terrorism/clothing/meat/seating arrangements.

As a supporter of secularism, I am willing to accept same-sex weddings in a state-sanctioned register office, on grounds of equity. As a believer in Islam, however, I insist that no mosque be forced to hold one against its wishes.