Friday, April 26, 2019
Tory candidates suspended over racist and inflammatory posts
With the local council elections less than a week away, the last thing that any party needs is to have to suspend candidates for misbehaving on social media. However, inevitably given the recent history of right wing infiltration into the party, that is what the conservatives have had to do.
The Guardian reports that two Conservative local election candidates and a woman honoured with an MBE are among 40 new self-professed Tory members who have shared or endorsed racist and inflammatory Facebook posts including Islamophobic material:
The torrent of racist posts include references to Muslims as “bin bag wearing individuals”, calls for the “cult” of Islam to be banned and the Qur’an being branded an “evil book”.
One female Tory supporter even called for a boycott of Muslim-owned shops and endorsed another comment labelling the religion’s followers “sub-human” and “cockroaches”.
Both of the council candidates – one of them claimed “Islamophobia was not surprising” in a rant about Muslims and said he would celebrate the death of the anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller – have now been suspended.
It comes as the Conservative party faces mounting pressure over its handling of Islamophobia. The Conservative peer Sayeeda Warsi has said Theresa May is “burying her head in the sand” over the issue and has led calls for a party inquiry.
Mohammed Amin, chairman of the Conservative Muslim Forum, is also calling for party chiefs to hold an inquiry into Islamophobia. He told the Guardian: “The serious question the Conservative party has to ask itself is: what is it about the image that it is projecting that causes people with these views to think they belong in the Conservative party?
“At the moment, it’s in complete denial about that question. It believes that tackling people one by one as they are exposed that somehow the problem will go away and I do not believe it will. It needs to hold a serious, independent inquiry both into its processes for dealing with issues like this and whether they are adequately transparent, and the even more fundamental question about the image the party is projecting to the British people, which makes people with racist and bigoted religious views believe that the Conservative party is the party for them. The people posting on Facebook certainly do believe that.”
Once more the charge that the Tories have failed to purge Islamphobia from their ranks, is levelled at
their leadership. As with Labour and anti-Semitism, this is a problem they cannot seem to get to grips with.
The Guardian reports that two Conservative local election candidates and a woman honoured with an MBE are among 40 new self-professed Tory members who have shared or endorsed racist and inflammatory Facebook posts including Islamophobic material:
The torrent of racist posts include references to Muslims as “bin bag wearing individuals”, calls for the “cult” of Islam to be banned and the Qur’an being branded an “evil book”.
One female Tory supporter even called for a boycott of Muslim-owned shops and endorsed another comment labelling the religion’s followers “sub-human” and “cockroaches”.
Both of the council candidates – one of them claimed “Islamophobia was not surprising” in a rant about Muslims and said he would celebrate the death of the anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller – have now been suspended.
It comes as the Conservative party faces mounting pressure over its handling of Islamophobia. The Conservative peer Sayeeda Warsi has said Theresa May is “burying her head in the sand” over the issue and has led calls for a party inquiry.
Mohammed Amin, chairman of the Conservative Muslim Forum, is also calling for party chiefs to hold an inquiry into Islamophobia. He told the Guardian: “The serious question the Conservative party has to ask itself is: what is it about the image that it is projecting that causes people with these views to think they belong in the Conservative party?
“At the moment, it’s in complete denial about that question. It believes that tackling people one by one as they are exposed that somehow the problem will go away and I do not believe it will. It needs to hold a serious, independent inquiry both into its processes for dealing with issues like this and whether they are adequately transparent, and the even more fundamental question about the image the party is projecting to the British people, which makes people with racist and bigoted religious views believe that the Conservative party is the party for them. The people posting on Facebook certainly do believe that.”
Once more the charge that the Tories have failed to purge Islamphobia from their ranks, is levelled at
their leadership. As with Labour and anti-Semitism, this is a problem they cannot seem to get to grips with.
