Via Middle East Eye:
British Prime Minister David Cameron invited the Muslim Brotherhood’s international spokesman to lunch at Chequers last year in a two-hour seminar in which the Brotherhood presented its vision and the prime minister asked what Britain could do to support it, the Middle East Eye has learned.
Gehad El-Hadad, the international spokesman, was the star attraction of a prime ministerial seminar held on 17 May last year, when the former president Mohamed Morsi was still in power and months before he was due to London on an official visit.
According to a source who was present, Cameron talked of crony capitalism under Hosni Mubarak, and the potential of free markets under Morsi. Cameron questioned El-Hadad on the Brotherhood’s vision and asked what Britain could do to support it.
El-Hadad’s answers were described by those who attended as convincing and were referrred to in Cameron’s own summary at the end of the meeting. The prime ministerial seminar was followed by lunch and a tour of Chequers. Also present was Maajid Nawaz, the co-founder of the Quilliam Foundation, a London-based think tank which focusses on counter-extremism.
The lunch at Chequers was the start of a series of meetings which Downing Street officials and ministers held with senior members of the Brotherhood. On June 5 Gehad’s father Dr Essam El Hadad had a meeting with John Casson in 10 Downing Street, accompanied by Dr Wael Haddara, senior advisor to the then Egyptian president. This was in preparation for a visit by Morsi in July. Dr El-Hadad also met William Hague and Alastair Burt at the Foreign Office.