UK Muslims urge probe into Tory handling of Islamophobia
The Muslim Council of Britain has called for an investigation into how the ruling Conservative Party handles Islamophobia within its ranks, saying Tories are mostly ignorant of the discrimination and hate against Muslims.
The call issued on Saturday came hours after some insulting comments against Muslims were posted on a Facebook group page related to senior Tory lawmaker Boris Johnson.
It also came after Dorinda Bailey, a conservative council candidate, posted a message on the same page supporting a user calling for bombing mosques.
Miqdaad Versi, a senior member of the Muslim Council of Britain, said it had become a strategy of the Conservative Party to ignore “Islamophobia until it goes away”, saying a probe should make clear how much the ruling party is gripped by Islamophobic approaches among its members.
Varsi told the Metro newspaper that Islamophobia had become so “expansive” among the Conservative politicians and party members that Muslim communities were feeling its impact on a “daily basis”.
“Just under half of Conservative voters believe Islam is a threat to the British way of life,” he said, citing a report by the Hope Not Hate campaign group.
A Conservative party spokesperson said the page launched by followers of former British foreign minister Johnson was not related to the Conservative Party, saying, however, that if a member posts insulting comments online the party will take action.
However, the accusations come against the backdrop of a clear surge in Islamophobic behavior in the Conservative Party.
Johnson, a main candidate of Tory party leadership in future, sparked huge controversy last summer when he wrote a commentary in the Daily Telegraph and compared Muslim women wearing burqas to “bank robbers” and “letterboxes”.
The article caused hate attacks against Muslim women to increase across Britain, a country home to nearly three million Muslims.
The surge in anti-Muslim approaches among Tory members comes at a time when the Opposition Labour Party is under immense pressure to dispel members over their alleged anti-Semitic conduct. The Labour leadership has found it difficult to convince critics that many of its members only oppose Israel and Zionism and have nothing against the Jews.
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