STATEMENT
Today, the Singh Investigation issued a release blaming churn within the Conservative Party for the significant delays in tackling Islamophobia within the Party.
The MCB has long-since advocated for the tackling of Islamophobia in Party politics, having submitted two separate dossiers to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) detailing hundreds of individual cases of Islamophobia throughout the rank and file of the Conservative Party and calling for an independent inquiry into Islamophobia in the Party.
The EHRC determined it would allow the Conservative Party to act on its own and the subsequent Singh Investigation, extremely limited in scope, resolved only to look at the Party’s complaints process – the handling of allegations of discrimination, including Islamophobia.
Islamophobia has become increasingly pervasive across sectors of our society. Recent data shows that incidents of recorded Islamophobic hate crime have more than doubled in the past decade.
More than two years after the Singh Investigation, we have experience of the Party’s internal complaints process still not working. As such, the Party of government has failed to act on even the limited recommendations outlined in the Singh Report.
Most reasonable observers, in turn, are likely to draw the conclusion that Islamophobia in the Conservative Party remains institutional in nature and that there is no real appetite to take concrete action to address Islamophobia within the Party’s own rank and file, let alone tackle the scourge of Islamophobia within wider society.
[ENDS]
Notes to Editors
- For any media enquiries, please contact: media@mcb.org.uk
- The MCB has submitted two dossiers to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), detailing incidences of Islamophobia in the Conservative party: see May 2019 dossier and March 2020 dossier
- Read MCB’s response to the release of the original Singh Investigation report (2021) here
- The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) is the UK’s largest and most diverse Muslim umbrella organisation with membership spanning national, regional local organisations, mosques, charities and professional networks. It is independent, cross-sectarian and democratic with the leadership team accountable to the membership.