My son was born on 30 January, 1978. On that very day, Margaret Thatcher, then Opposition leader, spoke thus on a Granada TV programme: “People are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture… [they] are going to react and be rather hostile to those coming in.” I burst into tears.
She carried on remorselessly, claiming that the public “do not agree with the objectives of the National Front (NF), but they say that at least they are talking about some of the problems”. The Conservatives, she said, “must talk about this problem and we must show that we are prepared to deal with it.” Right-wing papers agreed vigorously with her.
Back then her party was spooked by the NF; today it is spooked by the Reform Party and other such siren parties calling from the far right. That’s why Lee Anderson, Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman encourage anti-Muslim feeling with their claims about “Islamists” and Liz Truss, on a podcast, said nothing as the host opined that the hard right Tommy Robinson was a “hero”.
Racism has been the one constant in the post-war Conservative party. Winston Churchill wanted to keep his country white. In 1964, when Peter Griffiths stood for elections in previously solidly Labour Smethwick, his campaign team used the slogan: “If you want a n****r for a neighbour, vote Labour”. He won and defended the line: “[because] it expresses exasperation, not fascism”.
Enoch Powell only became more popular in Britain after his Rivers of Blood speech; Norman Tebbit’s “cricket test” to test migrant national loyalties won him a surge of patriotic support. In our times, Boris Johnson’s freely expressed prejudices and Theresa May’s Windrush scandal were part of that unbroken tradition.
Anderson was suspended after he said that “Islamists” controlled London because Mr Khan had “given our capital city away to his mates”.
But, Jenrick who warns that Britain has “allowed our streets to be dominated by Islamist extremists” and Braverman who states “the Islamists, the extremists, and the anti-semites are in charge now” are not censured. Why not? I believe it’s because bigotry is an essential microbiome in the Tory gut culture.
Sunak, Braverman, Priti Patel, Kemi Badenoch, and before them, Nadhim Zahawi, Sajid Javid and others in the so called “rainbow party” thrived within that culture by expunging their own cultural characteristics in order to become “truly” British.
Dr Rima Saini of Middlesex University led a study into such assimilators and concluded that they promote an “us and them” policy agenda to exemplify their “Britishness” and facilitate “the reproduction of the racialised, class-based status quo”. Abject, desperate and rather sad, that.
As disheartening are those black and Asian people – including many Muslims – who remain within the fold of the Tory party, knowing that many members and even some of their colleagues despise them. Why do they do it?
In 2021, an independent report found that two-thirds of all incidents reported to the complaints team at the Tories’ headquarters related to allegations of anti-Muslim discrimination. A survey in 2023 by Byline Times found that more voters believe that the Tory party is racist than the other mainstream parties. For a full picture read Racism and the Tory Party: From Disraeli to Johnson by Mike Cole.
Recently, a woman sat next to me on the Tube. Her MP Theresa May, she said, was “a real lady and proper Conservative. Look, no offence, but a brown PM is just not Conservative. Black ministers are just there for show. All these Muslims in the party, it makes me sick. I don’t want their votes. I don’t want them.” Her views of Sayeeda Warsi are unprintable.
This Baroness – whom I admire and like hugely – has now accused a new generation of Tories of “dragging this great party … into the gutter” and using anti-Muslim racism “as an electoral campaign tool”. Dearest Sayeeda, this is not new, but the same old same old.
Yet, Muslim millionaires like Mohamed Mansour and Mohamed Amersi hand megabucks to the Tories. They enjoy superficial adulation, but cannot buy real acceptance and respect.
And we have Muslim Tory MPs, spads and members claiming the party has embraced diversity. Mohammed Amin, ex-chair of the Conservative Muslim Forum, was one of them. Last year he wrote in the Guardian: “In 1983, as a new convert to free-market capitalism, I joined the Conservative Party … I still have many of the beliefs that made a Conservative and made me willing to persuade others to become Conservatives. But I could never recommend anyone to vote for today’s Conservative Party.”
He saw the dark malevolence and recoiled. I hope other brown and black Tories feel that revulsion now.
Bigotry is an essential microbiome in the Tory gut culture
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27.02.2024
My son was born on 30 January, 1978. On that very day, Margaret Thatcher, then Opposition leader, spoke thus on a Granada TV programme: “People are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture… [they] are going to react and be rather hostile to those coming in.” I burst into tears.
She carried on remorselessly, claiming that the public “do not agree with the objectives of the National Front (NF), but they say that at least they are talking about some of the problems”. The Conservatives, she said, “must talk about this problem and we must show that we are prepared to deal with it.” Right-wing papers agreed vigorously with her.
Back then her party was spooked by the NF; today it is spooked by the Reform Party and other such siren parties calling from the far right. That’s why Lee Anderson, Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman encourage anti-Muslim feeling with their claims about “Islamists” and Liz Truss, on a podcast, said nothing as the host opined that the hard right Tommy Robinson was a “hero”.
Racism has been the one constant in the post-war Conservative party. Winston Churchill wanted to keep his country white. In 1964,........
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