No 10 copied in on messages to Nusrat Ghani referencing ‘rivers of blood’ speech

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The UK government’s only female Muslim minister has been bombarded with emails from a Conservative activist praising Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech and questioning whether immigrants should be allowed to stand for parliament.

Nusrat Ghani, the shipping minister, received correspondence from David Proudfoot, a constituent and party activist, which said the UK should be controlled by “our own people, not people from a different culture” and called for an end to “ghettoes like little Pakistans”.

Ghani said the messages were “disgusting”.

Downing Street and senior Conservative MPs were copied in on many of the emails, sent over the past three years and seen by the Guardian. Proudfoot’s party membership has been withdrawn, an official confirmed.

The correspondence emerged as the Tories continue to fight off claims that Islamophobia is endemic within the party.

It was revealed last month that some party members believe the home secretary, Sajid Javid, should not become prime minister because of his Muslim background.

The former party chairman Sayeeda Warsi said the issue of anti-Muslim bigotry was symptomatic of Theresa May’s leadership and followed the prime minister’s shift to the right on immigration issues.

Ghani, who was born in Kashmir and brought up in Birmingham, was the first Muslim woman to speak at the dispatch box in the House of Commons. She is Proudfoot’s MP in Wealden, East Sussex.

In one email sent to Ghani, Proudfoot wrote: “It is widely accepted that the country is being dragged down by certain undisciplined immigrants and the British people demand a resolution. Should we allow immigrants to be elected to our parliament?

“Do we not have 650 men and women of heritable British people that are intelligent enough to run our country? We want to be controlled by our own people, not people from a different culture.”

In correspondence sent in June 2017, which was copied to John Redwood and Javid, Proudfoot forwarded an email claiming “the British have passively succumbed to the Muslim invasion” and added that its content was “95% right”.

He wrote: “Immigrants coming here think they have won the lottery but they rarely integrate … We finish with ghettoes like little Pakistans. Can anyone say that Enoch Powell wasn’t right with his ‘rivers of blood’ speech?”

Immigrants were also compared by Proudfoot to a “swarm of locusts” that he said should be “chemically sprayed or the wheat plants are stripped bare and eaten”.

Ghani condemned Proudfoot’s comments after the publication of the Guardian’s story.

“As a party, we are clear that discrimination or abuse of any kind is wrong and will not be tolerated, and I am pleased we have taken action against such disgusting behaviour,” she said in a statement released through the Conservative press office.

Lady Warsi, who is in talks with party officials about confronting Islamophobia, said the unearthing of a sustained campaign of abusive emails raised further concerns for May and senior Conservative figures.

“When senior members of the party like Nus Ghani who identify as Muslim are subjected to such ongoing Islamophobic abuse and harassment, it raises real concerns about the abuse that more junior members of the party are having to endure at a grassroots level,” she said.

May has been under pressure for more than a year to deal with allegations of Islamophobia within the party. Dozens of examples of online abuse, unearthed by the anonymous @matesjacob Twitter account, are still being investigated by Tory officials.

Brandon Lewis, the party’s chairman, has faced criticism after the Conservatives ignored complaints from Muslim activists for several months before launching inquiries, and the disclosure that 15 councillors were reinstated despite making apparently Islamophobic or racist remarks.

Proudfoot, a 74-year-old farmer, told the Guardian he first joined the Conservative party more than 50 years ago and was planning to appeal against a decision to suspend his membership following a disciplinary hearing in October.

“There are many, many people in the party who agree with me on immigration,” he said.

Proudfoot denied holding racist views – he claimed to have Pakistani, Jamaican, Chinese and Jewish friends – and suspected he may have been suspended because some party members held a grudge against him because of a planning dispute.

“I have been raising questions and wanted to hear some answers. She [Ghani] was born in Kashmir … But if she is born abroad, why are we entertaining her in the British government?” he said.

Toby Illingworth, the chair of Wealden Conservatives, said Proudfoot was no longer a member of the party.