Conservative Muslim Forum says party failing to tackle Islamophobia

Chairman Mohammed Amin said the group has decided to send a letter to the party leader and "unanimously concluded that it is essential that the Party should hold such an inquiry," he told The New Arab.

Last week, the Muslim Council of Britain, which represents more than 500 mosques, schools and associations in the country, penned a letter to the ruling party's chairman, Brandon Lewis, requesting a "full audit to ensure racists and bigots have no place in the party".

The MCB said in the space of two months, there have been ten incidents of Islamophobia among Tory councillors and prospective candidates.

The most cited case is that of Bob Blackman, MP for Harrow East, who retweeted a far-right extremist "by accident," shared an anti-Muslim article on Facebook and hosted Tapan Ghosh – an extreme Hindu nationalist who praised the ethnic cleansing and mass murder of Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims.  

The Conservative Party seems to be taking the approach that if it keeps quiet and does nothing the issue of anti-Muslim sentiment by some members of the party will somehow magically go away

The claims have been dismissed by Home Secretary Sajid Javid, who instead chose to attack the MCB's representivity and presented his appointment to Cabinet as evidence otherwise, despite having previously said "the only religion practised in my house is Christianity".

In response to Javid's comments, Amin told The New Arab, "just because we have not experienced it personally does not mean that it does not exist. Drawing such a conclusion is simply not logical thinking."

"The Conservative Muslim Forum decided unanimously that the matter was so serious that we should actually make our position known publicly," Amin told The Independent.

He said the party was perceived as being "anti-Muslim" and had prioritised electoral concerns rather than taking "decisive action".

"The Conservative Party seems to be taking the approach that if it keeps quiet and does nothing the issue of anti-Muslim sentiment by some members of the party will somehow magically go away," he said.

"Right now the Conservative Party does not want to create political problems or rock the boat."

Institutional problem

As the incidents came to light, there have been more calls for action. Lady Warsi, the party's former chair, warned the party faced a wider institutional problem of Islamophobia, and that she has spent more than two years trying and failing to get her successors and Prime Minister Theresa May to engage with the problem.

Warsi added that it was "a shame" a public rebuke was required for the Tories to take the concerns seriously.

Lord Mohamed Sheikh, a Tory peer, echoed the calls in an open letter, saying the strong statements made are "both factually correct, and a matter of grave concern to the many Muslim members and supporters of the Party".

Labour MP Rupa Huq said the Conservative Party's record point to "the very definition of institutional racism - not merely bad apples, but a systematic leadership failure to address both personal prejudice and systemic unfairness".

"The Tories' failure on Islamophobia is desperately disappointing. But for Britain's Muslims it's worse than that," she said. "If the people who claim to be leading this country are shirking their responsibility to protect all the communities living here, it sends an appalling message. It makes racists inside and outside their party think they can get away with it."

The Conservative Party said that it takes all claims of racism seriously and had responded quickly when reported.