On Wednesday 30th September, a leading charity campaigning around anti-racism reported that over 20 councillors from the Conservative Party use their social media platforms to express “Islamophobic” opinions. This follows after prime minister Boris Johnson failed to fulfil his promise of inquiring into Islamophobia within the Tory Party.
According to a recent poll by charity Hope Not Hate nearly half of all the members think Islam is “incompatible” with British life. The anti-Muslim sentiment was disclosed in the inquiry, set up last year to examine claims of discrimination in the party and the investigation is being led by Professor Swaran Singh. The charity also commissioned a YouGov poll of over 1,200 Conservative members who found widespread distrust of Islam and Muslims. It noted that only 43 percent had broadly positive feelings towards Muslims, compared with 73 percent feeling positive towards Hindus and 75 percent for Sikhs. Only 31 per cent of members thought that discrimination against Muslims was a serious problem in Britain. The YouGov poll found that 47 per cent thought that Islam was “generally a threat” to the British way of life where 50 per cent said Islam “breeds intolerance”.
Hope Not Hate analysed about 40 cases in which activists or councillors had posted anti-Muslim or Islamophobic content on social media. According to the charity, one activist was suspended last year for making an Islamophobic joke about the Christchurch massacre in New Zealand. He was reported to have been allowed back into the party after completing an “online diversity course”. The group found he continued to post Islamophobic content on Facebook including calling for Muslims to “go home — we won’t miss you”.
In the meantime, the Conservatives are now looking into how the party has dealt with complaints into all forms of discrimination since 2015.
