I'm a progressive. What I find is that a subsection within the left that instead of standing for consistency in progressive values, so feminism as applied to mainstream society, as well as within minority communities, gay rights to mainstream society as well as within minority communities.

The Bosnian Genocide was something that triggered my consciousness and led to an awakening politically for me.

When I returned to the United Kingdom, I found that I could no longer justify Islamist extremism as the antidote.

I can now say that the more I learnt about Islam, the more tolerant I became.

After much soul searching I was able to renounce my past Islamist ideology, challenging everything I was once prepared to die for.

No form of theocracy, whether it's manifested in a violent or non-violent form, is ever good for civilisation, and we have to challenge it in civil society as well as we would challenge Christian-based theocracy, or any other form of bigotry.

I had the assassins of the former president of Egypt, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood was with me in prison, the leaders of my own former group Hizb ut-Tahrir were with me in prison and so by the time I was released at the age of 28, I wasn't the man who went in at 24.