- Friday, April 26, 2024
By: Keerthi Mohan
THE Conservative party has been dragged into yet another controversy over Islamophobia after it was revealed that home secretary Sajid Javid has been the subject of online attacks by people claiming to be Tory members.
It has emerged that self-professed party members have been discussing how to prevent Javid from becoming prime minister.
One man reportedly wrote on Facebook that Britain was not ready for a Muslim prime minister.
“Britain is not ready for a Muslim PM, that would be taking the absolute piss out of the country.”
Another woman wrote she was staying on as a Tory member so that she could elect the right leader. Javid “will protect his own. He was sworn in on the Koran,” she wrote.
Mohammed Amin, chairman of the Conservative Muslim Forum, called these statements “deplorable.”
“There are people with bigoted views in all political parties,” he was quoted as saying by The Guardian. “But a serious question that our party’s leadership needs to ask itself is, what is it about the Conservative party and the way that it’s projecting itself that leads people like these bigots to believe that they have a home within the Conservative party?
“Unfortunately, at the moment I don’t think it’s projecting as inclusive an image of Britain as we did, for example, under David Cameron. It needs to do much more.
“At the moment it’s believed that by dealing with individual instances as they come up that that will make the problem go away and it’s clearly failing. What it needs is much stronger leadership from the top to project a much stronger and more inclusive image.”
A Conservative party spokesperson, meanwhile, said complaints have been dealt with swiftly.
“Discrimination or abuse of any kind is wrong. When CCHQ [Conservative campaign headquarters] has been made aware of the small number of such cases we have acted swiftly, suspending members and launching immediate investigations, in sharp contrast to other parties.
“Our complaints process is rightly a confidential one, but there are a wide range of sanctions to challenge and change behaviour, including suspension periods and expulsion.”
