A peer has been suspended as the chair of a housing association over a social media post in which he described Hamas as “Islamist rapists and murderers”.
Midland Heart, which is based in Birmingham, also said a meeting has been arranged to discusss removing Lord Austin from the board.
But the decision was criticised by Michael Gove, the housing secretary, who said he was seeking an “urgent meeting and explanation” with the group, which provides affordable homes and receives public funding.
He also described Lord Austin as a “champion for affordable housing, (who) he has spent his career fighting racism.”
In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, the peer, a former aide to Gordon Brown, said: “Everyone, better safe than sorry: before you go to bed, nip down and check you haven’t inadvertently got a death cult of Islamist murderers and rapists running their operations downstairs. It’s easily done.”
He later deleted it saying: “People have complained about a tweet I issued at the weekend about Hamas’ operations centre being underneath UNRWA’s ( the UN refugee agency’s) offices” in Gaza.
“It was not my intention to offend anyone and I have deleted it. As I have written and said many times – including in a national newspaper today – the vast majority of Muslims are just as appalled by racism and terrorism as everyone else.”
(PA Archive)
He told the Daily Telegraph: “The word ‘Islamists’ is very clearly a reference not to Muslim people but to extremists”.
He accused “politically motivated bullies” of deliberately misinterpreting his comments about Hamas, which killed 1,200 people in Israel in a massacre at the start of October.
“I am particularly appalled that people are claiming the word ‘Islamist’ refers to all Muslims and it is disgraceful for people to claim this is in some way ‘Islamophobic’,” he said.
Lord Austin quit Labour in protest under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, when the party was dogged by accusations of antisemitism.
Midland Heart have been approached for comment.