Independent MP Iqbal Mohamed attacks Sky News for false antisemitism accusation
Independent MP Iqbal Mohamed has condemned Sky News after a presenter falsely suggested he had been suspended from Labour for alleged antisemitism.
Sky News interviewer Sophy Ridge apparently confused him with a former Labour councillor named Mohammed Iqbal, with whom the parliamentarian has no connection.
Speaking in an interview with former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Ridge said Mohamed had been suspended from Labour for allegedly making antisemitic comments.
"The ease with which the mainstream media throw around baseless allegations of antisemitism against those critical of Israel’s genocidal actions against the Palestinians is deeply concerning and shameful," Mohamed told Middle East Eye on Thursday.
The incident took place during an interview on Sky News on Tuesday with Corbyn, who led Labour from 2015 to 2020.
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Corbyn was expelled from Labour by his successor Keir Starmer in October 2020 after saying that claims of antisemitism in the party during his time as leader had been "overstated" for political reasons.
Though Labour readmitted Corbyn as a member in November 2020, it refused to let him continue as a Labour MP.
In 2024 Corbyn was re-elected in Islington North as an independent, comfortably defeating a Labour candidate after predictions that his seat was under threat proved to be misplaced.
Iqbal Mohamed or Mohammed Iqbal?
During Tuesday's interview, Ridge asked Corbyn about his fellow members of the Independent Alliance, a grouping of five independent MPs elected last July on a pro-Palestine platform.
"Mohammed Iqbal was suspended from Labour after allegedly making antisemitic comments at a meeting," Ridge said, apparently referring to Iqbal Mohamed, who is an MP in the Independent Alliance.
"If you feel it is wrong that you have been expelled from Labour for these reasons, you're not really helping the case for the defence here, are you?"
Ridge appears to have mistaken Mohamed for Mohammed Iqbal, a former Labour councillor in Lancashire who was suspended in 2022 for allegedly making antisemitic comments during a council debate.
In the version of the interview available to watch on YouTube, the segment has been edited out.
MEE understands that Sky News also issued an on-air apology.
Mohamed told MEE on Thursday that he was concerned by the "ease with which the mainstream media throw around baseless allegations of antisemitism against those critical of Israel’s genocidal actions against the Palestinians".
He added: "It is a cheap and damaging smear. Sky informed my team it had issued an on-air clarification and apology but this should never have happened in the first place.
"If their journalist had been bothered, a five-minute internet search would have clarified the matter."
During the interview, Corbyn defended his fellow Independent Alliance MPs, saying: "They are good colleagues and they're very good at representing their constituency, and very determined to bring about peace and justice for the Palestinian people.
"They have exactly the same views as all the rest of us, that racism is an evil in society. They have themselves suffered racism as Muslim people. They do not want to put the same onto Jewish people."
'Politics has been hijacked'
Mohamed, who was born and raised in Dewsbury, is an engineer and IT consultant whose parents arrived from India in the 1960s.
Formerly a Labour member, he quit over now-Prime Minister Keir Starmer's support for Israel's war on Gaza in late 2023, including a total blockade on food, water and power entering the besieged territory.
'If their journalist had been bothered, a five-minute internet search would have clarified the matter'
- Iqbal Mohamed MP
Mohamed entered parliament last July after being elected in the West Yorkshire constituency of Dewsbury and Batley with a thumping majority.
He secured 15,641 votes, winning with 41.1 percent of the total vote share, whilst the Labour Party candidate Heather Iqbal received 8,707 votes, or 22.9 percent of the vote share.
Standing on a pro-Palestine platform and in defence of local issues such as the cost of living crisis and the failing NHS, Mohamed said during the election that "politics has been hijacked by the corrupt, selfish, pro-war, racist elite and is being used against us".
MEE has contacted Sky News for comment.
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