The core of the organisation was made up of Muslim professionals who had worked under the banner of UK Action Committee for Islamic Affairs (UKACIA).
However, after the 2009 Israeli offensive in Gaza, MCB reverted to its original policy, receiving renewed aspersions about its lack of commitment to multiculturalism and to tackling extremism.
MCB is said to be dominated by groups that have their roots in "anti-colonial political Islam from Middle East and South Asia",[12] in particular Pakistan, Bangladesh and Arab countries.
[13] The Secretary General from 1997 to 2006, Iqbal Sacranie, received a knighthood in the 2005 Queen's Birthday Honours for his longstanding service to the community and interfaith dialogue.
[20] Regarding the limited number of Muslim women on trustee or management boards of mosques, the MCB stated that "the lack of diversity is unacceptable".
[20] In 2011, the MCB expressed that a woman not covering their face with a veil is shortcoming, and Muslims that advocate such behaviour are in jeopardy of "rejecting Islam".
[25] Following the 7 July 2005 London bombings, the MCB issued statements expressing its disgust at the events: "All of us must unite in helping the police to capture these murderers.
Sunny Hundal wrote in an exchange with Iqbal Sacranie: "In order to defeat violent extremism, we must understand what motivates these people and what turns them into killers.
[30] On 3 March 2008, the MCB criticised the Foreign Secretary David Miliband's response to Israel's killing of over 100 Palestinians in Gaza as "blatantly one-sided."
"[31] When schoolteacher Gillian Gibbons was jailed in Sudan for allowing her class to name a teddy bear Muhammad, the same as the Muslim prophet, the MCB condemned the incident as "a gross overreaction" and said the Sudanese authorities lacked basic common sense.
[32] Following the fatal bombing of Manchester Arena in May 2017, MCB Secretary General Harun Khan condemned the attack, saying "This is horrific, this is criminal.
[34] Since 2009, successive British governments have maintained a policy of "non-engagement" with the Muslim Council of Britain based on claims that the group is not sufficiently representative and that some of its former officials have made favourable remarks about extremists in the past.
[35][8][36][37][9] Between 2001 and 2007, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) expressed its unwillingness to attend the Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony and associated events.
She said it would be "absurd to exclude the MCB, the biggest Muslim organisation in this country and the one that has achieved the greatest degree of non-factionalism and non-sectarianism.
[43] Yet, in April 2007, the Muslim Council of Britain issued a statement supporting the government legislation "prohibiting discrimination in the provision of goods and services on grounds of sexual orientation".
[44] On 3 January 2006, Iqbal Sacranie told BBC Radio 4's PM programme he believes homosexuality is "not acceptable" and denounced same-sex civil partnerships as "harmful".
[52][53] When editorial cartoons of Muhammad were printed in the Danish daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005, the MCB saw them as reflecting "the emergence of an increasingly xenophobic tone being adopted towards Muslims in parts of the Western media" and argued, "We should not allow our valued freedoms in Europe to be abused by those deliberately seeking to provoke hatred and division between communities".
At the same time, it said they regarded "the violent threats made against Danish and EU citizens by some groups in the Muslim world as completely unacceptable.
At the time of signing, political leaders, including the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown had suggested providing peacekeeping naval forces to monitor arms-smuggling between Gaza and Egypt.
[64] In regards to Muslims, the British media "tended to focus on a narrow range of issues and recurrent, negative types of characterization".
[65] The MCB also condemned the BBC drama series Bodyguard, stating that it "pandered to stereotypes of Muslim women who wear the hijab as oppressed or subservient".