Islamophobia is rife within the Conservative Party

It could be very difficult for any of them to worm their way out of this commitment now, even for the greatest of all wrigglers, Boris Johnson. Given his own track record of unwelcome Muslim commentary in newspaper columns the inquiry could start by investigating the new leader! After all, Boris’s Muslim great grandfather would expect nothing less? Of course, if any Tory leadership hopeful was really serious on how to properly approach this sensitive subject then just look north to the Holyrood cross-party group’s newly launched inquiry into tackling Islamophobia.

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But for Javid, it’s personal.

The “Saj” admits to feeling like the outsider in the wolf pack. No matter how much he hauls the ladder up behind him on immigration, no matter how much he kowtowed to Theresa May’s hostile environment policy, or stood legs akimbo at the English Channel with the navy on call against a handful of desperate refugees. No matter how much he sucks up, he’s fated to be on the outside looking in, with his nose pressed against the window pane looking on at the privileged elite.

And believe me he is still smarting about the final insult of being shut out of the royal state banquet when President Trump came a-calling. If Trump can pull off a Muslim ban for an entire country, then what is the big deal about banishing a mere Home Secretary for a single dinner?

We’ll never know the truth about Trump and the guest list, but we do know that Javid faces an uphill struggle to re-educate some of his colleagues and party members on what it means to be a Muslim in contemporary Britain and, indeed, the wider world. He’s previously tried to play Conservative Islamophobia down when, for example, he argued that his becoming Home Secretary was a significant step in the right direction.

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But that, of course, is very far from the issue, and the real struggle continues, compounded by news this week of some utterly shocking statistics on Tory attitudes, according to the recent study commissioned by Hope Not Hate.

In a YouGov poll of Conservative party members for the anti-racist campaign group, 43% “would prefer to not have the country led by a Muslim” with a further 79% saying they don’t believe their party has a problem with Islamophobia.

And there is much more bile to come: 67% believe that “there are areas in the UK that operate under Sharia Law”, 45% believe “there are areas in Britain in which non-Muslims are not able to enter” and only 8% would be “proud of Britain if we were to elect a Muslim as our Prime Minister”.

Quite an eye-opener, seeing those percentages of prejudice laid bare. As a Muslim, a woman, a proud Scot and a former Member of Parliament, it chills me to the bone.

Because when the once unthinkable becomes acceptable then there are the consequences of what might come next in the escalator of bigotry; travel bans as in America, internment camps as in China, massacres as in the horror of Christchurch?

Because it is ignorance and ostracisation, the toleration of prejudice in everyday life, normalised in our public discussions and in our politicians’ commentary, that inexorably leads to an environment in which terrible acts are finally committed against minorities by the feeble-minded.

In truth, then, Javid never really stood a chance of claiming the Conservative crown. The “curse of Ruth” will not have helped but with medieval and racist attitudes rattling around the membership, Javid as a possible leadership candidate was only ever going to be a token gesture, a distraction, a diversity-box-ticking exercise for the early rounds before the Oxbridge old boys strode into the ring.

Don’t forget it is this prejudiced “super minority” of Conservative members who will decide how our country is run and who will make the big decision on how Britain “Brexits” and floats away into splendid isolation.

We’ve another month left of leadership circus before these signed-up bigots make their final decision, and right now it’s still looking good for Johnson, despite his manifest flaws, public and private. If the Tory members don’t care for a Muslim as PM, they certainly won’t care about a PM’s racist rantings and playground puns about this religious minority.

Something tells me Johnson doesn’t give a fig either. After all, he’s now best buddies with Steve Bannon, the former Trump strategist who is causing havoc spreading his nasty agenda across the globe.

It was Bannon who came up with the Muslim ban for Trump; it was Bannon who told a Front National convention to wear their racist label like a “badge of honour”; it was Bannon who described Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson) as “the backbone of Britain”.

With these kind of poll results, Bannon will just whisper in Johnson’s ear, “see, I told you this is what your party members wanted”. It worked for Bannon with Trump in America, and now it’s working for Bannon with Johnson in the UK.

I wish Javid well with his pursuit of the Islamophobes in his party and I wish him luck with holding those leadership candidates to their TV commitment. But something tells me it’s going to get a whole lot worse before it gets any better.

Because, as the Hope Not Hate poll demonstrated, for Boris and much of the Tory membership, Muslims are mere collateral damage in the new great political game.

Boiled down to their racist essence, these Tories still yearn for a return to an imperial age where the map was coloured red and Britain was coloured white.