Former British Deputy Transport Minister Nusrat Ghani claimed on Sunday that she was removed from office in a 2020 government reshuffle because her ‘Muslim’ faith posed ‘a problem’, reigniting accusations of Islamophobia within the Party Conservative Boris Johnson already under pressure.
Nusrat Ghani, 49, told The Sunday Times that a Conservative Party executive explained to him in February 2020 that “his origins and his faith” had been instrumental in his ousting from government.
“I was told that at the reshuffle meeting in Downing Street my Muslim faith had been raised as an issue, that a Muslim woman in government was making my colleagues uncomfortable and that it was feared that I don’t be loyal to the party because I wasn’t doing enough to defend it once morest allegations of Islamophobia,” she said.
“A Punch in the Stomach”
“It was like a punch in the stomach. I felt humiliated and helpless,” the MP told the newspaper, saying she did not speak regarding it publicly at the time because she had been warned that she would be “ostracized by her colleagues” and that her “career and reputation would be destroyed”.
In an unusual step, Mark Spencer, party executive, identified himself as the person targeted by these remarks, while denying them. “These accusations are totally false and I consider them defamatory,” he said on Twitter.
They come at an already difficult time for Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party, which is currently in an ejection seat because it has been blamed for a series of parties in Downing Street in full confinement.
The old demons of the conservatives
They also come to revive the old demons of the conservatives, long accused of allowing Islamophobia to flourish in their ranks. In May 2021, a report had concluded that “anti-Muslim sentiment remained a problem within the party”, faced with a problem of Islamophobia at the local or individual levels but not “institutional”.
“Aware of these extremely serious allegations”, the Prime Minister met with Nusrat Ghani and “subsequently wrote to her expressing her deep concern and inviting her to initiate a formal complaints procedure”, which she ” did not subsequently,” a Downing Street spokesman said, adding that “the Conservative Party does not tolerate prejudice or discrimination of any kind.”
Education Minister Nadhim Zahawi had called for “an appropriate investigation” on Twitter, but Justice Minister Dominic Raab, despite accusations he described as “very serious”, warned Sunday morning on BBC that there would be no investigation if Ms Ghani did not formally file an internal complaint.