Muslims in the party say their complaints over the issue have been brushed under the carpet

When Ahmed (not his real name) joined the Conservative party six years ago, he thought it was a natural fit. “A lot of Muslims share conservative values,” he says. “I stood to be a councillor and there was talk of me going on to the party lists to become an MP.”

He says he worked hard during election time, increasing the south Asian vote in his ward in Yorkshire. But a simple question about postal votes to the MP suddenly made him feel like he did not belong in the party. “I just asked a question,” he says. “In no way did I insinuate that I was going to do anything silly or illegal regarding postal votes. But his response was ‘This is the UK, sunshine’. It was really patronising – would he have said that to someone not of colour? He was inferring that I wasn’t British.”

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He then overheard other members talking disparagingly about another candidate of Pakistani heritage in a different ward. Not long after, he heard another party member say “the only good Muslims are Ahmadiyya Muslims”. “That’s like saying the only good Christians are the Coptics,” he says. “It’s insulting to all the others.”

While he was not directly racially abused by other party members, seeing Islamophobic comments on local party Facebook groups was common, he says. “It wasn’t a nice experience in the party. Those in the right of the party you felt a sense of being looked down upon, they were patronising you. The whispers weren’t nice at all. But now those same members are very Islamophobic on their Facebook posts, now you see it quite openly.”

A party member in the West Midlands says he made a complaint to the Conservatives’ regional headquarters, after an older councillor made a racist remark during a meeting. “It was totally brushed under the carpet; they didn’t want to know,” he says. “They just said ‘don’t worry about it, he’s an old man’.”



He contacted the Muslim Council of Britain after seeing other complaints about Islamophobia in the party. “When I saw the letter, I thought how refreshing – this is something that all Muslim Conservatives are feeling,” he says. “Only Muslims can feel Islamophobia and only black and ethnic people can feel racism – if you are not black or Asian you are not going to feel it. But they say to you ‘it’s nothing, it’s you, you’re reading too much into it’. But I can feel it, it’s how people look at you when you go to pray, or when you are fasting. It’s in how people talk to you.”

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When no action was taken over the member who used racist terminology, it made him feel like he was “on the outside”, he says. “My dad has been here for 60 years, but it makes me feel like we are back in the days of Enoch Powell; it makes me feel like we haven’t moved on at all.”

It makes me feel like we are back in the days of Enoch Powell Tory party member in the West Midlands

“It’s a problem throughout the party. It’s rampant because people don’t understand Islam. They think it’s a religion based on terrorism. We don’t think Isis are Muslims. They are a bunch of idiots, we believe they are terrorists like everyone else.”

Another councillor did not want to be named because he believed it would be political suicide. “They’d put me under a bus for speaking about it,” he says.

He feels his progress in the party has been blocked because of his religion. “It was fine in the local party until I showed some ambition,” he says.



After he pushed to advance in the party, barriers suddenly appeared and he was made to feel like his face did not fit, he says.

“They use terms like ‘the right sort of candidate’,” he says. “I sometimes wear a skull cap and people came to me and said that the local party leader had said that I looked too Muslim and I wouldn’t be accepted.”

He says he has complained about the issue, but feels he cannot push it any further. “You mention Islamophobia and they run for the hills. The problem is too many people have too many friends in high places, so nothing is ever done about it.”