‘UK leadership candidates not held to account over Islamophobia’
LONDON (AA) – The UK leadership candidates must address Islamophobia within the Conservative Party, according to the head of the country’s largest and most diverse Muslim umbrella organization.
Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Nusrat Ghani recently said that the party is institutionally Islamophobic and her “Muslimness” was raised when she was fired from her transport minister’s post.
Zara Mohammed, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), believes Boris Johnson should have apologized in his resignation speech to the Muslim community and has warned that “no concrete steps” have been taken to tackle the issue, despite the MCB recording more than 300 instances in the Tory party since 2019.
Muslims in the UK overwhelmingly vote for the Labour Party. Under Prime Minister David Cameron, the Conservative Party made great progress by gaining Muslim voters.
A long-awaited 2021 review into Islamophobia acknowledged that there had been anti-Muslim sentiment within the Conservative Party and it criticized the party for failing to properly investigate allegations, but no evidence was found that the Tory party was institutionally Islamophobic.
Critics labeled the report as a “whitewash” and have argued that the findings only focused on the complaints process and failed to identify party prejudice.
The Conservative Campaign Headquarters said it could not comment until the end of the leadership contest in September.
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