Islamabad:Prof Swaran Singh from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, has said that the democratic and demographic dividend of South Asia was under threat from the coronavirus and supported.
âIt is difficult to identify any basis upon which this has been a serious attempt to address credible and serious matters or deliver on Boris Johnsonâs leadership election pledge.
âIf anything it acts as an illustration of an attitude inclined to view Islamophobia as an irritant best pushed to one side, when not being utilised in promoting culture wars rather than as a serious systemic issue which needs to be rooted out.â
Another senior Muslim Tory said: âThis report is a sad reflection of how little the party cares about inclusivity.â
In a pointed message to Johnson, the review said the leadership of the party âought to set a good example for appropriate behaviours and languageâ.
Last modified on Tue 25 May 2021 23.37 EDT
It took an unusually forthright intervention by Sajid Javid in a BBC Conservative leadership debate in June 2019 to force an inquiry into anti-Muslim prejudice within the party’s ranks.
The then home secretary turned to his four rivals and put them on the spot: “Shall we agree, guys? Shall we have an external investigation into Islamophobia?”
The last to agree was the frontrunner to succeed Theresa May as party leader and prime minister – Boris Johnson – who nodded and mouthed “yes”.
Nearly two years later, Prof Swaran Singh, a former equality and human rights commissioner, analysed 1,418 complaints relating to 727 separate incidents as recorded in the Tories’ complaints database between 2015 and 2020.
Ministers were forced to climbdown on travel restrictions to English Covid hotspots after a day of mounting confusion and anger left millions of people wondering if they needed to cancel bank holiday plans.
Contentious advice will be removed from the government website, a spokesperson confirmed on Tuesday evening. It had advised against all but essential travel to and from eight areas of
England where the Covid variant identified in India has been spreading. Instead, people will be advised to âminimise travelâ.
The controversial guidance directly affected 1.7 million people living in eight local authorities â Bedford, Blackburn, Bolton, Burnley, Kirklees, Leicester, North Tyneside and the London borough of Hounslow â as well as many others who had holidays or family visits planned to those areas following the easing of restrictions.
Investigation into Conservative Party’s treatment of anti-Muslim discrimination claims ‘is ignoring witnesses with damning evidence’
6 April 2021 • 9:30pm
Former Conservative party co-chairman Baroness Warsi, who had previously complained that anti-Muslim prejudice was ‘very widespread’ in the Tory party, collated a series of cases to submit to the inquiry
Credit: Clara Molden for The Telegraph
An inquiry into the Tory party s handling of Islamophobia complaints has been accused of ignoring individuals who wanted to submit damning evidence, sparking fears of a whitewash.
The independent probe, commissioned by Boris Johnson in December 2019 to look into the party s treatment of anti-Muslim and other discrimination allegations, is set to report in May, an inquiry spokesman confirmed.