The Conservative Party’s strategy to tackle its “Muslim problem” is failing, a senior Tory figure warned today.
Mohammed Amin, chairman of the Conservative Muslim Forum, said there has been a growing number of party members making anti-Muslim comments and an ineffectual response.
Dealing with incidents case-by-case and in “silence” is not helping the party reform, he suggested in a piece today for the website Conservative Home.
“Despite the party chairman asserting a zero tolerance approach the bad news continues to emerge. I have some specific advice. Get serious about transparency,” he said.
He wants the party to publish a monthly tally of incidents on its website, the sanctions that have been applied and an explanation of what a member has done to show change before they are reinstated after a suspension. In March it emerged the party had suspended 14 members over anti-Islam comments. Some were reinstated just weeks later, leading to criticism that the party was taking too soft an approach.
Commissioning an independent enquiry into anti-Muslim bigotry and how the party has dealt with it would also restore faith, Mr Amin suggested.
He said the party did not “respond positively” to calls made by senior Muslims in the party last year for an enquiry, and this “has not been well received by British Muslims generally”.
He added: “At present the Conservative Party’s only perceived strategy for this problem is dealing with cases one-by-one, as quietly as possible. It is not working.” Conservative deputy chairman James Cleverly has previously said that when something happens in the party involving a member “we take immediate action”.
