The host has been accused of ‘weaponising Muslim women to attack a politician’ (Picture: GB News)
GB News presenter Darren Grimes has been condemned by a Muslim organisation for sharing ‘Islamophobic’ AI-generated images of Sir Keir Starmer.
A representative for the Muslim Council of Britain accused the TV host of ‘playing into far-right tropes of a Muslim takeover’, as well as ‘weaponising Muslim women to attack a politician’ following the posts that he shared on X.
In one of the posts, Grimes – who has more than 339,000 followers on the social media platform – wrote: ‘What will Britain look like after 5 years of Sir Keir Starmer?’, alongside a digitally-altered picture of the Labour leader depicted as wearing a long pink Islamic clothing.
The tweet was shared on June 10 this year, and has been viewed two million times.
In another post from the same day, Grimes questioned: ‘How has Labour changed?’
This featured two images – the top one showed a group of men in flat caps in a sepia tone, while the picture below showed Sir Keir standing beside women wearing Islamic head coverings.
The tweets in question targeted the Labour leader (Picture: Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)
Later that evening, Grimes posted again, sharing a picture of Sir Keir portrayed as wearing an Islamic ensemble in the colours of the rainbow Pride flag, with the caption: ‘July 5th 2024,’ denoting the day after the General Election.
The posts in question were highlighted by Byline Times journalist Adam Bienkov, who wrote in a critical tweet: ‘This is a current presenter on a supposedly mainstream news channel. Islamophobia now totally normalised in the UK.’
A few days later, Bienkov published an article in the publication with a statement from Zara Mohammed, the Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain, denouncing Grimes’ ‘Islamophobic’ behaviour.
‘Weaponising Muslim women to attack a politician and playing into far-right tropes of a Muslim takeover should have no place in public life,’ Mohammed said.
‘It is unclear how such an Islamophobic perspective from a prominent public face of GB News aligns with the broadcaster’s goal of being perceived as a respectable news outlet.’
The Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain claimed that ‘Islamophobia is prevalent on GB News’ (Picture: GB News)
The Secretary General continued, putting GB News on blast by stating: ‘Darren Grimes is not alone. Islamophobia is prevalent on GB News. This cannot continue.’
Earlier this year, former Tory MP and GB News host Lee Anderson was suspended from the Conservative Party after refusing to apologise for comments that he made on GB News, when he stated: ‘I don’t actually believe that the Islamists have got control of our country, but what I do believe is they’ve got control of Khan and they’ve got control of London, and they’ve got control of Starmer as well.’
In a statement later released by GB News, Anderson said: ‘When you think you are right you should never apologise because to do so would be a sign of weakness.
‘My words may have been clumsy but my words were borne out of sheer frustration at what is happening to our beautiful capital city.’
Metro.co.uk has contacted GB News and Darren Grimes for comment. GB News did not respond to Byline Times with a comment prior to their article’s publication.
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