James Brandon

James Brandon is a former senior research fellow at the Quilliam Foundation think tank and at the Centre for Social Cohesion a think tank set up by Civitas 'following widespread and longstanding concern about the diminishing sense of community in Britain'.. He is also a contributor to the attack blog Harry's Place.

He is currently managing news editor at Travel Security Services, a joint venture between Control Risks and International SOS, and an associate fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR) in London.

Career

James Brandon is a journalist who has reported on Islamic issues from Europe, Africa and the Middle East for a wide range of print and broadcast media. In 2003-4 he helped found the Baghdad Bulletin, the first English-language newspaper to be set up in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Since then he has reported on the growth of Islamist groups in more than a dozen countries, writing analysis for Janes' and the Jamestown Foundation among others. In 2006 he became the first western journalist to interview the leaders of Pjak (the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan), the largest Kurdish rebel group in Iran.

Brandon has also appeared as a commentator on Islamic issues on CNN, BBC and Sky News. Most recently he worked as an editor for al-Jazeera television in Qatar. He has an MA in Middle Eastern Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London.

Centre for Social Cohesion

Brandon gave an account of his time at the Centre for Social Cohesion in January 2009:

until recently I worked with Murray at his Centre for Social Cohesion, which I joined because, in mid-2007, few other thinktanks were willing to seriously address the problem of Islamism at all. My time there was a constant struggle to "de-radicalise" Murray and to ensure that the centre's output targeted only Islamists – and not Muslims as a whole. This October, however, I had finally had enough of this constant battle and resigned. To his credit, Murray has privately retracted many of his more noxious comments – but he apparently lacks the courage to do so publicly.

Articles

• James Brandon: Our false narrative on Islamist terror helps nobody, conservativehome.com, 24 January 2015, accessed 4 May 2015

Affiliations

• associate fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR)
• Quilliam Foundation - former senior research fellow
• Centre for Social Cohesion - (formerly) Senior Research Fellow
• Harry's Place - contributor
• Maplecroft Ltd