Tory Islamophobia denied……again
JVL Introduction
There has been another claim of Islamophobia in the Tory Party, this time by Nusrat Ghani, MP for Wealden. The contrast between how this important example of racism is treated and how antisemitism in the Labour Party has been addressed by the media is palpable.
None of the allegations of antisemitism made against Labour Party members come within a mile of such naked racism. There have been no examples of powerful people in the Labour Party treating its Jewish MPs or Councillors in this sort of way and yet the words “Labour” and “antisemitism” have become inextricably linked. Even (then) Tory MP, and Speaker John Bercow said he had never experienced antisemitism from the Labour benches in comparison with his experience from some fellow Tories. As we have said previously, the different media treatment is not only unfair but such misinformation is also dangerous for our futures; .
Ms Ghani said “I felt humiliated and powerless. I was told that at the reshuffle meeting in Downing Street that ‘Muslimness’ was raised as an ‘issue’, that my ‘Muslim women minister’ status was making colleagues uncomfortable”. When she raised this formally she said that she “had to listen to a monologue on how hard it was to define when people are being racist and that the party doesn’t have a problem and I needed to do more to defend it.”
Yet again this is being reported almost as though this is “an individual” issue. There is no media pile on about systemic or institutional Islamophobia in the Conservative Party. This Guardian article also makes no links to the previous previous complaints, not even the high profile statements from Baroness Warsi. nor to the internal Inquiry that the EHRC deemed sufficient for addressing this problem
Ms Ghani’s allegations have been strongly denied as outlined and, indeed, headlined, in this Guardian article. However, Ms Ghani had previously said that she dropped the matter after being told that if she “persisted” in asking about it she “would be ostracised and her career and reputation would be destroyed”.
“I raised it several more times through official party channels…. I was extremely careful to follow procedure, and when the procedure ran out of road I had no choice but to get on with my career.”
Sadly Labour has also much to examine in relation to its treatment of Muslim comrades and representatives as has, for example, been expressed by Zarah Sultana MP.
This article was originally published by The Guardian on Sat 22 Jan 2022. Read the original here.
Chief whip comes forward as person behind ‘Muslimness’ sacking claim
Chief whip comes forward as person behind ‘Muslimness’ sacking claim
Mark Spencer says accusations are ‘completely false’ after Nusrat Ghani says she was told her faith made colleagues ‘uncomfortable’
‘It was like being punched in the stomach,’ the MP for Wealden said.
Mark Spencer, the chief whip, has said a Conservative MP was referring to him when she accused a member of government of telling her she had been sacked from her ministerial post because her Muslim faith was “making colleagues uncomfortable”.
Boris Johnson faces calls for an inquiry into Nusrat Ghani’s claim in an interview with the Sunday Times that, when she lost her job as a transport minister, she was told that “Muslimness” had been raised as an problem at a meeting in Downing Street.
“It was like being punched in the stomach,” said the MP for Wealden, who was sacked in a mini-reshuffle in February 2020 after the resignation of Sajid Javid as chancellor. “I felt humiliated and powerless. I was told that at the reshuffle meeting in Downing Street that ‘Muslimness’ was raised as an ‘issue’, that my ‘Muslim women minister’ status was making colleagues uncomfortable and that there were concerns that I wasn’t loyal to the party as I didn’t do enough to defend the party against Islamophobia allegations.
“When I challenged whether this was in any way acceptable and made clear there was little I could do about my identity, I had to listen to a monologue on how hard it was to define when people are being racist and that the party doesn’t have a problem and I needed to do more to defend it.
“It was very clear to me that the whips and No 10 were holding me to a higher threshold of loyalty than others because of my background and faith.”
A few hours after the story was published, Spencer tweeted: “To ensure other whips are not drawn into this matter, I am identifying myself as the person Nusrat Ghani MP has made claims about.
“These accusations are completely false and I consider them to be defamatory. I have never used those words attributed to me.”
Spencer added: “It is disappointing that when this issue was raised before Ms Ghani declined to refer the matter to the Conservative party for a formal investigation.”
He said the claims relate to a meeting in March 2020.
“When Ms Ghani raised them she was invited to use the formal CCHQ complaints procedure. She declined to do so,” Mr Spencer tweeted.
Nadhim Zahawi has called for an investigation into the claims. “There is no place for Islamophobia or any form of racism in our Conservative party,” the education secretary said. “Nus Ghani is a friend, a colleague and a brilliant parliamentarian.
“This has to be investigated properly and racism rooted out.”
The comments come as the conduct of the whips’ office is under intense scrutiny amid accusations they used intimidation and blackmail to pressurise MPs seeking to oust Boris Johnson as prime minister.
The senior Tory who first raised the allegation, William Wragg – the chair of the Commons public administration and constitutional affairs committee – praised Ghani’s courage in speaking out.
“Nus is very brave to speak out,” he tweeted. “I was truly appalled to learn of her experience. She shows such strength and integrity supporting others.”
A spokesperson for the whips’ office said the allegations were “categorically untrue” and that the Conservative party did not tolerate racism or discrimination.
Contrast the Guardian’s softly-softly approach to Tory Islamophobia with the following comment by Jay Rayner in today’s Observer, explaining why he had a renewed interest in a German Neo Nazi he had interviewed for Cosmopolitan in 1992:
“It coincided with the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour party, and a massive rise in overt antisemitism both from certain parts of the hard left and elsewhere, slabs of which washed on to my electronic doorstep. (“Put the cunt on a train for a shower,” read one comment about me. “A gas shower is what he needs,” read another.)”
Of course it’s possible that these comments came from very stupid LP members or supporters. That’s certainly the impression that we’re meant to have – rather than “elsewhere”. But which is more likely?
And the lazy assumption that the “rise in antisemitism” – and not just from the “hard left” – was real and all due to Corbyn’s election as party leader is disgusting and not questioned at all. When will this stop?
Re Jay Rayner, I very much doubt that it was anyone on the left and a supporter of Jeremy’s who posted such evil bile, and almost definitely enemies of Jeremy’s who are handsomely paid by the hidden dark forces to demonise him and his supporters.
I mean isn’t it odd how in these days of mass surveillance that so few of the people posting such malevolent stuff ever get tracked down and caught and dealt with. Hardly ANY in fact!
Anyway, there were some – of course – who disagreed with Jay. And quite right Too!:
https://twitter.com/jayrayner1/status/1485253257630990336
Talking of John Bercow, in his GQ Magazine interview, and referring to Jeremy Corbyn, he said that ‘He’s been very supportive of me and I’ve never detected so much as a whiff of anti-Semitism’. Now I don’t know how many Jewish MPs there have been during his time in Parliament (and prior to becoming leader of the LP), but I think we can be 100% certain that neither did any other Jewish MPs, for surely they would have said something about it as of after all the A/S allegations kicked off if they had.
Yes, so the number one threat to Jews according to some US Jewish organisation several years ago (I think it was the Simon Wiesenthal Center), managed to keep his anti-semitism hidden from not only Jewish MPs, but every single person who has served as an MP during the course of several decades! And everyone else!
And in respect of my previous comment can I just add the following: By all accounts, thousands of Jeremy Corbyn supporters posted tens of thousands of anti-semitic and threatening and bullying and abusive comments during the years he was leader, and yet hardly any of them were ever tracked down and charged in these days of mass surveillance. Right, so all these thousands of people are supposedly really, really tech savvy, and they know just how to avoid being traced and, as such tracked down and charged.
The numbers of course were greatly exaggerated, and the vast majority of alleged A/S comments weren’t anti-semitic or threatening or abusive at all, but of those that WERE, it is odd how so few of them were ever caught!
Apropos “Tens of Thousands of abusive emails” how did they count them and how know they came from the Labour Party?
Of those that were reported to the Labour Party – it was shown that many came from the same few people – and many of these were not Labour Party members.
If the mere presence of a Muslim woman in their cabinet makes them feel “uncomfortable” then they clearly have a problem. It’s almost like they’re saying the cabinet wouldn’t be a safe space for them to feel ‘comfortable’ in.
The recent statement by Rachel Reeves accusing 150,000 members, who have left since Jeremy was suspended, of antisemitism is one of the most disgusting rants I have heard in my lifetime. It is clear now that to hold socialist views in the Party means you are in danger of expulsion . If you are Jewish then you are in greater danger.
I had a feeling that JVL re-posted this excellent piece by Bob Pitt from March 2019, so I just checked, and they DID.
Anyway, all I can say is that if you’ve never read it, please, please take the time to do so (20 mins read), and then share it with EVERYONE you know:
‘Has the Labour left subjected Luciana Berger to hatespeak and death threats?’
https://medium.com/@pitt_bob/has-the-labour-left-subjected-luciana-berger-to-hatespeak-and-death-threats-146598226313
What I was actually researching when I came across Bob’s article again was Luciana Berger’s claim that ‘a former Labour Party member made a threat against her unborn baby’, and THAT is how it was widely reported by the MSM. Here’s a couple of clips from a Times interview in March 2019.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/luciana-berger-interview-corbyn-and-labours-antisemitism-crisis-crgdng6w6
The piece begins thus:
Luciana Berger is just two weeks away from giving birth when we meet and she is still receiving death threats almost every day as well as a torrent of antisemitic abuse on social media. “I’ve even had a threat to my unborn child,” the MP says. “It came from a former Labour Party member.”
And then later in the piece:
Although she has not been physically harmed, on one occasion a man pursued her at a music event in Liverpool screaming antisemitic abuse in her face [I wonder if it was the same person that screamed antisemitic abuse in Ella Rose’s face….?]. “It was lots of different things at different moments during the evening saying, ‘I f***ing hate Jewish people.’ I believe he was a Labour Party member at the time.” One particularly horrible tweet shortly before she resigned, from a former Labour member said, “Let’s all pray the same fate awaits @Lucianaberger’s baby that she wishes for all Palestinian babies.”
As far as I can ascertain this ‘former Labour member’ has never been caught and charged, and if THAT’s the case, how on earth would she know he was a former Labour member. As for the other episode at the music event, does it sound remotely plausible that no-one would have intervened on seeing/hearing someone screaming anti-semitic abuse at a Jewish woman, or that she herself wouldn’t have reported him to organisers and they then turf him out, or get the police involved??? And was she there on her own….. Seems highly unlikely!
And I wonder what made her conclude that he was a LP member at the time?!
Funnily enough – NOT haha – I came across the following JC article (posted last September) an hour or so after I posted my previous comment:
‘EXCLUSIVE: Momentum chief said abused ex-MP Luciana Berger was ‘disingenuous’ on Labour Jew-hate’
The co-chair of Momentum accused Jewish former MP Luciana Berger — who quit Labour after facing years of antisemitic abuse and death threats from pro-Corbyn activists — of being disingenuous in her account of Jew-hate in the party, the JC can reveal.
Screenshots of private Facebook posts from 2019 showed Gaya Sriskanthan making the comment in response to an interview in which Ms Berger revealed that six people had been convicted of antisemitic hate crimes and death threats against her.
So in the first paragraph of the article the author of the piece – ie ‘JC Reporter’ – asserts that Berger faced ‘years of antisemitic abuse and death threats from pro-Corbyn activists’, and in the very next paragraph mentions that ‘six people had been convicted of antisemitic hate crimes and death threats against her’, and deliberately ‘crafted’ it that way so as to have readers believe that the six people who were convicted of hate crimes and death threats were all pro-Corbyn activists. But, needless to say, if that WERE the case, then you would of course have related it as follows (or similar):
‘The co-chair of Momentum accused Jewish former MP Luciana Berger — who quit Labour after facing years of antisemitic abuse and death threats from pro-Corbyn activists, six of whom have been convicted…..’
But they DON’T, and for the obvious reason! The JC is/was doing EXACTLY as Berger herself has done, as Bob Pitt elucidates in his exposé – ie that she ‘has consistently blurred the distinction between the abuse she has received from the left and from the far right’. And no doubt most of the MSM did the same TOO!
https://www.thejc.com/news/uk/exclusive-momentum-chief-said-abused-ex-mp-luciana-berger-was-disingenuous-on-labour-jew-hate-1.520258
Private Facebook posts??! Hmm.
Apologies for so many comments……