Conservative Party Turning Blind Eye to Islamophobia Claims: Muslim Council of Britain
Three weeks after it first raised the issue, the group wrote again to Brandon Lewis on Tuesday highlighting further allegations of anti-Muslim prejudice within Tory ranks. It said it was not acceptable to turn “a blind eye to legitimate concerns about bigotry”.
The MCB said further examples of alleged Islamophobic abuse had emerged, including the former party chair Sayeeda Warsi saying she had been racially abused at meetings, and a pro-Tory Facebook group that contained a string of anti-Muslim threats.
The MCB letter, a copy of which has been seen by the Guardian, says: “Three weeks ago we wrote to you requesting an inquiry into Islamophobia within the Conservative party. Sadly we have neither received an acknowledgement nor a reply.
“We cannot have an approach where you are hoping that the issue would magically go away so that it could avoid a bruising inquiry into anti-Muslim prejudice.”
The MCB also cited comments by a former parliamentary candidate, Shazia Awan, who said she had quit the party because it had “a notion that Islam is not compatible with British values”.
Although Lewis did not respond directly to the MCB letter, he wrote an article for Conservative Home 10 days ago in which he said the party would work with the anti-racism group TellMama, would make diversity training available to party members and would remind local associations of the standards of behaviour expected.
“A single case of abuse is one too many, and since becoming chairman I have taken a zero-tolerance approach,” he wrote.
The MCB said it welcomed “at least your willingness to talk about Islamophobia” but added that it had been approached by “other individuals [who] have shared with us their stories of experiencing Islamophobia” who did not want to be named because they were afraid of damaging their prospects in the party.
One Tory member had told it about a local party leader who said another member looked “too Muslim” and “wouldn’t be accepted”, and it had also heard of “five BME Tory members being seated on a single table at the back of a room at a Conservative association dinner”.
Relations between the MCB and the Conservatives have been fractious ever since the group called for an internal inquiry at the end of May. The home secretary, Sajid Javid, said shortly afterwards that the MCB “does not represent Muslims in this country”, prompting the MCB to accuse him of “shooting the messenger”.
At the time the MCB asked why no action had been taken against Bob Blackman, the Harrow East MP, after he retweeted an anti-Islam message from the hard-right activist Tommy Robinson, and hosted a hardline Hindu nationalist, Tapan Ghosh, in parliament. Blackman said he had retweeted the Robinson post accidentally and had not known in advance that Ghosh was being invited to an event last October.
Harun Khan, the secretary general of the MCB, said: “We earnestly hope that the Conservative party addresses concerns of Islamophobia with the seriousness it deserves. The true extent of the problem can only be achieved via an independent inquiry.”
The Conservative party declined to comment.
Source: The Guardian
