Alwaght- Muslim leaders in Britain have called for an urgent inquiry into Islamophobia within the ruling Conservative Party following the recent London mayoral election campaign, which was widely branded divisive and Islamophobic.
The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB, the country’s largest Muslim representative organization, said the party’s recent campaign for Mayor of London was punctuated by “Islamophobic” smears against both the now Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and other Muslims.
On Wednesday night Prime Minister David Cameron issued an apology for any “misunderstanding” regarding his claims during the mayoral race that south London cleric Suliman Gani is a supporter of ISIS terrorist group.
The accusations were part of an attack on newly elected Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan, and suggested the Muslim politician associates with extremists as he had shared a platform with the imam.
The MCB, the country’s largest Muslim representative organization, welcomed Cameron’s apology but called on both the PM and Defence Secretary Michael Fallon, who echoed Cameron’s claims over the weekend, to make formal retractions.
“I welcome the prime minister's long overdue apology to Imam Suliman Ghani, a London imam who has thus far been unable to challenge claims made in Parliament that he supports Daesh [Arabic pejorative term for IS] or terrorism … I call on both the prime minister and the defense secretary to make that apology in Parliament as well,” said Secretary General Shuja Shafi.
Shafi also called for a probe into the extent of Islamophobia within Tory ranks to run alongside the Labour inquiry into its own alleged anti-Semitism.
“I also call for an urgent review of Islamophobia in the Conservative Party, just as the Labour Party is rightly conducting an inquiry into anti-Semitism. We should have zero tolerance for both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia,” he said.
“We urge the Conservative Party to reflect and learn from this disreputable period of campaigning so that we can all draw a line and move on.”
The call comes days after former Tory cabinet minister Baroness Warsi herself warned that her party had lost in London because it had run an “appalling dog-whistle campaign” in the capital.
She said it had "lost us the election, our reputation and credibility on issues of race and religion".
