'Muslim scum': Conservative Party members suspended for Islamophobic posts

Around 20 Conservative Party members have been suspended for posting Islamophobic content online.

The BBC said it had presented over 20 new cases to the party, who said all members found to have shared or supported anti-Muslim posts on Twitter and Facebook were suspended.

The officials did not reveal the exact number of members suspended.

The BBC was alerted to the new cases of Islamophobic content by an anonymous Twitter used and verified each one before contacting the Conservative Party.

Incidents ranged from "liking" anti-Muslim statements or photos on several occasions to routine Islamophobic posts by Tory party members.

One Conservative councillor wrote on Twitter that "Islam and slavery are partners in crime".

An independent parish councillor who said he worked on Boris Johnson's 2012 Mayoral campaign wrote: "Islam is THE religion of hate (sic)" and "Muslims hate = free speech (sic)."

Other posts included comments such as "Muslim scum" and "I don't want Muslims in this country", the BBC reported.

A Conservative spokesman said the party was "establishing the terms" of an investigation into the wider issue.

"It's not enough to reactively protest that we are not racist when caught. If we really care we have to be proactively anti-racist," Baroness Warsi, the former Tory chairwoman who was the UK's first female Muslim cabinet minister, wrote on Twitter.

She told BBC Radio 4’s World at One that the party was too slow on addressing the issue.

"You said you didn't need an inquiry; now acknowledge it," she said.

"You said you needed a definition; you now have it. What new nonsense excuse are you now going to come up with simply to avoid dealing with this issue?"

More than half of the UK's Conservative Party members believe Islam is "generally a threat" to the British way of life, a new YouGov survey revealed in July.

Some 52 percent of members surveyed felt threatened by religion, while 22 percent thought it was "generally compatible", the survey showed, amid accusations that the party has failed to address Islamophobia.

Last year, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson famously compared women who wore the burqa to "letterboxes" and "bank robbers".

Despite outrage at Johnson's comments, the Tory politician refused to back down.