Islamophobia is on the rise, including at the highest levels of Government

The 29th October 2020 was one of the worst days in the history of the Labour Party, it was the day that the Equality and Human Rights Commission found the party to have breached the Equality Act for failing to address antisemitism within its ranks. The party acted immediately, and continues to act where new circumstances arise, with the EHRC removing Labour from special measures early last year.

Today racism is again on display in British politics, only of a different form and in a different party. The question is whether the Conservative Party are also prepared to act to remove Islamophobia from their ranks.

While we have seen the whip removed from the Conservative Party Deputy Chairman and the sacking of Suella Braverman as Home Secretary, it is deeply concerning that people with such views were ever appointed to high office, as are the many examples of where the party has failed to act.

The last Conservative Party Leader, Liz Truss, was seen this week on American television agreeing with Islamophobic conspiracy theories and her immediate predecessor as Conservative Party Leader, Boris Johnson had a long track-record of making Islamophobic remarks, for which he was regularly forced to apologise. While it was Suella Braverman who was sacked for stoking up the hate against pro-Palestinian marchers which ultimately resulted in a Far Right riot at the Cenotaph, it was Crawley’s own MP who first called for the army to be used against the marchers. Yet, not one of these MPs has been kicked-out of the the Conservative Party.

The regularity with which these statements are made makes it clear that we’re not just dealing with a few bad apples, Islamophobia appears to be seen as an acceptable form of racism within the Conservative Party, with those leading Conservatives who are brave enough to call it out–such as Baroness Warsi–being sidelined by their leadership.

This isn’t a new discovery, an independent report commissioned by the Conservative Party made it clear that the party suffers from institutional Islamophobia three years ago. Yet, while the Labour Party used that time to act against antisemitism, in the Conservative Party today these Islamophobic views have only become more overt.

It cannot be acceptable for a major political party in modern Britain to contain structural racism of any form, particularly one in Government, taking decisions over people’s lives. Either Rishi Sunak needs to get his house in order or the EHRC need to step up, as they did with the Labour Party, and mandate the Conservative Party to end the racism within their ranks.