Tell the Home Secretary: Suspend the Islamic Centre of England's Visa Sponsor Licence

The British public deserve confidence that organisations entrusted with sponsoring visas into the United Kingdom meet the very highest standards.

The Islamic Centre of England, a charity based in Maida Vale, London, has been the subject of a Charity Commission statutory inquiry since November 2022. The Commission had already issued the charity an Official Warning in 2020, after events held at its premises following the death of the sanctioned Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, and appointed an Interim Manager to the charity in 2023. In 2025, the Commission ordered sweeping governance reforms, including the removal of a requirement, written into the charity's own governing document, that one of its trustees be the UK religious representative of Iran's Supreme Leader.

That inquiry has still not concluded. Yet reporting by The Telegraph in July 2026 revealed that the Islamic Centre of England remains on the Home Office's official register of licensed visa sponsors: A-rated, and licensed for the Skilled Worker, Minister of Religion and Religious Worker routes. We have checked the Home Office's published register ourselves. It is true.

An organisation under statutory investigation by one arm of the British state is simultaneously trusted by another to sponsor visas into our country. We believe that cannot be right.

Whether or not the charity ultimately faces further regulatory action, many members of the public will understandably question whether it is appropriate for any organisation under this level of scrutiny to hold the privilege of sponsoring visas. Visa sponsorship is a position of profound trust: sponsors vouch to the Home Office for the people they bring into Britain. The Centre, for its part, denies representing any government or political entity, and the Home Office says it has not sponsored any workers since 2022. But that is precisely the point: if the licence is not being used, suspending it while the inquiry runs costs nothing, and if it is ever used, the public deserve to know the due diligence stands up.

We call on the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, to act. Suspend the sponsor licence until the Charity Commission's statutory inquiry concludes. Publish the due diligence and any national security assessment behind the charity's continued place on the register. Review the rules, so that organisations under serious regulatory investigation cannot sponsor visas while the questions hang over them. Put public safety and national security before political correctness.

The Home Office suspends and revokes sponsor licences regularly. Using that power here, until the inquiry reports, is a modest and reasonable step.

This is not about any faith or community. It is about one simple principle: organisations trusted with access to Britain's immigration system must be beyond serious question. While a statutory inquiry is open, the benefit of the doubt belongs to the British public.

Want to do more? Write to the Home Secretary in your own words via the Home Office's public contact form on gov.uk, or raise it with your own MP. Every letter and every signature makes it harder to ignore.

This is people power in action. Make your voice count. Tell the Home Secretary to suspend this licence until the inquiry concludes. Sign the petition today.

Stand up and be counted for your country. Thank you.