She said the party she used to chair was institutionally islamophobic.
The former Conservative Party chair Baroness Sayeeda Warsi said that “at least” three Tory candidates should have lost the party’s whip over Islamophobia.
Warsi told the BBC’s Emma Barnett she could “probably think of at least three [Tory candidates who should have lost the whip] off the top of my head”.
When asked if she wanted to name them, Warsi laughed and said: “I don’t want to name them, not in the middle of an election campaign. Details of them are out in the public domain. It wouldn’t take long to find out who they were.”
In the same interview, Warsi said that the Conservative Party was institutionally Islamophobic and called for an inquiry into Islamophobia – rather than the “watered-down” inquiry into prejudice that the party plans.
Left Foot Forward has identified five Tory candidates who have been accused of Islamophobia. The most notable is Boris Johnson who compared Muslim women wearing niqabs to letterboxes.
Another is junior minister Nadine Dorries, a candidate in mid Bedfordshire who has been accused of Islamophobia and other forms of racism several times.
Dorries blamed London Mayor Sadiq Khan for grooming gangs in Rotherham and Telford – seemingly because Khan is muslim as were those involved in these grooming cases.
Khan was also accused of links to Islamic extremists by his Tory opponent for London Mayor Zac Goldsmith.
Goldsmith was made a minister by Boris Johnson and is now a candidate for the marginal seat of Richmond Park.
Another candiate accused of islamophobia is Bob Blackman, MP for Harrow East, who has a 2,000 majority over Labour.
Blackman has invited an Indian anti-Muslim extremist to speak in parliament, shared an Islamophobic article from a US anti-muslim website, re-tweeted far-right activist Tommy Robinson and was a member of several Islamophobic facebook groups.
In South Cambridgeshire, the party’s candidate is former Boris Johnson aide Antony Browne. In 2002, he said that British muslims have divided loyalties over the Iraq War.
Update: This article was updated on 12/11/19 to include information about Antony Browne.
3 Responses to “Warsi: At least three Islamophobic Tory candidates should be dropped”
Gary
Well, no great surprise there, is there? She’s obviously been on the receiving end too. But what also doesn’t surprise me is the COMPLETE lack of any coverage of this in the TV or print news. Our news outlets are now so blatantly pro Tory it’s flat out propaganda.
For example, Boris made two ‘gaffes’ when laying his wreath at the Cenotaph. He stepped out too soon and compounded matters by laying the wreath upside down. But, rather than show the actual footage, the BBC managed to ‘lose’ it and decided to show Boris laying a wreath from THREE YEARS AGO when he didn’t botch it. This wouldn’t have come to light but for the actions of an eagle-eyed viewer. The BBC today apologised blaming a ‘production error’ Would there have been a ‘production error’ if Jeremy Corbyn had done the same? I think not.
Decades ago we used to laugh at the extent of the government propaganda fed to the Russian people via their state broadcasters. Well, I’m not laughing now that it’s OUR government and OUR state broadcaster…
Joe
‘islamophobia’ is a political concept created to limit democratic discussion of islam.
Nadine Dorries again shares far-right disinformation | Left Foot Forward
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