Burnham cannot allow Ali Milani near power

Andy Burnham’s pledge to be ‘for all of us’ may include hiring a man for his Downing Street staff who called 9/11 a ‘false flag’ that the US ‘knew of… in advance’, made jibes against Jews, defended an advocacy group that called Jihadi John a ‘beautiful young man’, and said that exposés of the child grooming scandals were a ‘racist campaign’. Ali Milani, chair of the Labour Muslim Network, has been working closely with Burnham in the run-up to his election as Makerfield MP and Labour leader, helping with his social media, and has been repeatedly spoken of as an expected hire in No. 10’s digital communications team.

What hasn’t been reported in the coverage of Milani’s potential new job is his views. Writing in 2025 about the grooming scandals – years after multiple official reports had confirmed what happened – Milani claimed that ‘this conversation in Westminster has nothing to do with the actual victims or the crimes… I will call it out for what it is – a racist campaign.’ He also claimed that politicians were asserting that group-based sexual abuse is ‘an exclusively Pakistani and/or Muslim problem.’

The actual charge was that the crimes were disproportionately committed by Pakistani and/or Muslim men. Earlier, Milani had turned his forensic crime-solving skills to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, which killed more than 3,000 people. He wrote : ‘3,000 deaths will not be at peace until the truth is revealed! #falseflag.’ He later added: ‘It is and will forever be, until a thorough independent investigation is done, my position that the US gov. Knew of the attack in advance.’

He later apologised for this, noting that he was a teenager at the time and later described the theories as ‘silly’. Most popular Milani also apologised for a series of tweets from the same era where he demanded the destruction of Israel, insulted the former newspaper editor Piers Morgan as ‘a zionist’ and wrote in response: ‘Nah u won’t mate. It’ll cost you a pound #jew,’ a jibe at Jews’ supposed meanness. In 2015, he signed a letter condemning the National Union of Students for boycotting the group Cage, whose head of research had that year described the Isis executioner Mohammed Emwazi (‘Jihadi John’) as a ‘beautiful young man’. (The head of research later said that ‘at the end of the day’, Emwazi’s actions were ‘absolutely horrific’.)

Milani and his fellow signatories claimed that allegations of extremism against Cage were ‘baseless, Islamophobic smears’ and ‘cutting ties with Cage denies NUS a wealth of experience and information in tackling Prevent,’ the government counter-extremism programme It would be extremely dangerous for security and the fight against extremism to put someone with Milani’s current views anywhere near Downing Street. It’s not just his opposition to Prevent.

He has recently and repeatedly campaigned against the very use of the term ‘Islamism’, claiming it is ‘racist’ and is used by ‘Islamophobes’ as a synonym for all Muslims. He also said : ‘Terms like “sectarianism” and “Islamism” are used too often by people who don’t have the basic courage to just say: “All Muslims”.’ Of course, it is exactly the opposite. The term ‘Islamism’ is used as a way of distinguishing extremists from the non-Islamist Muslim majority.

Scrapping it would mean tarring all Muslims with the same brush, which is precisely what Ali condemns. It would also deny anyone the language to condemn extremism. Maybe that’s his intention. The Labour Muslim Network, which Ali chairs, appears to be another deeply problematic body. It has said that asking Muslims to ‘disavow Hamas’ is ‘rooted in Islamophobia’ and attacks the way that Muslims are ‘constantly harassed into condemnations‘ of terrorist groups.

Goods currently for sale in its online shop include a Labour Muslim Network-branded ‘Scrap Prevent’ T-shirt. Even using Ali Milani to the extent that Burnham already has is a huge error of judgment on the new Labour leader’s part. Letting him near actual power, and all the threats a PM must tackle, would be far more serious.