British officials and analysts said that hate speech and "Islamophobia" are on the rise in the British Conservative Party, which, according to them, is clearly showing hostility to Muslims, especially during the term of Boris Johnson.
The Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain, Zara Muhammad, criticized the candidates for the leadership of the ruling Conservative Party and the position of Prime Minister, ignoring the efforts to find ways to combat hate crimes against Muslims, "Islamophobia".
Muhammad called on the candidates to take this issue "seriously", referring to the silence of outgoing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson about it throughout his reign.
He said that Johnson should have "apologized in his resignation letter to the Muslim community," noting that he had not taken any concrete steps to address this issue.
Muhammad revealed that the Muslim Council of Britain has monitored more than 300 cases of anti-Muslims committed by members of the same Conservative Party since 2019.
Conservative Islamophobia
The Secretary-General of the Islamic Council's comments came in the wake of Conservative MP Nusrat Ghani's accusation that the party was "institutionally anti-Islam", and the issue of the party's anti-Muslim sentiment was raised when Ghani was expelled from the post of transport minister.
In the same context, political writer Peter Oborne said: "I have written a lot about the problem of Islamophobia and intolerance against Muslims in the Conservative Party. I fear that Boris Johnson himself is in the forefront, and he was guilty of making a number of bad remarks (against Muslims)."
He noted the tolerance within the Conservative Party of Islamophobia for a long time.
He added: "The culture of anti-Muslim hatred is evident among Conservative MPs, advisors and ordinary members who often believe in conspiracy theories about Muslims, which is very foreign to the advanced Western society that claims to be tolerant."
In his book Abraham's Fate: Why the West is Wrong with Islam, Auburn explains how the conservative British Center of Thought has dismantled the UK's traditions of tolerance and multiculturalism with Muslims as its "primary targets".
Auburn explained that he describes in his book the different ways in which an image of Islam and Muslims in the West is formed, pointing out that this happens through the media, politics, and intellectual centers.
Government indifference
The former head of the Muslim Conservative Forum, Muhammad Amin, said the government was "not doing enough to tackle Islamophobia", stressing that the Conservative Party was prioritizing only "re-election".
Muslims in the UK vote overwhelmingly for the Labor Party, but under former British Prime Minister David Cameron the Conservative Party made significant progress in winning over Muslim voters.
Muslim voter turnout for the Conservative Party in the general election has fallen significantly since 2015.
The Muslim Conservative Forum was established within the British Conservative Party in 2005 with the aim of developing relations with Muslim communities in the country to support the party.
Invitations to investigate
For several years there have been numerous calls, including that of the Conservative Muslim Forum, for an independent investigation into manifestations of Islamophobia and intolerance against Muslims in the Conservative Party.
Initially the party refused to conduct an investigation, but in its 2019 leadership election, former candidate MP Sajid Javid managed to convince the other candidates to promise an independent investigation into Islamophobia.
However, then the outgoing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson began to shy away from those calls.
The former president of the Muslim Conservative Forum added: "The Conservative Party has failed to deal with anti-Muslim intolerance among its members."
Johnson's successor
British government spokesman Qari Asim comments on these accusations, saying: "We have zero tolerance for anti-Muslim hatred, and we will continue to address discrimination and intolerance."
The British government had appointed Qari Asim as an independent advisor to publicize Islamophobia in July 2019, but he was eventually fired.
Assem said in a press statement: "I cannot answer the reason for the government's decision to exclude me from the office, but I think that the government did not want to address the issue of defining Islamophobia."
It remains to be seen whether the next British Prime Minister will do more to address the issue of Islamophobia than the silent Johnson.
Johnson had won the largest majority of the Conservative Party in decades in the 2019 elections, but his prime minister was shaken against the backdrop of multiple scandals, the most famous of which was violating the anti-Corona rules known as “Party Gate” and hosting a party at Government House in London, in light of widespread anger at his policies and accusing him of lying.
The name of the new prime minister is expected to be announced on September 5, after Conservative Party members cast their votes by mail.
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