Ex-Secretary of State criticizes
Islamophobia allegations against Johnson’s party
01/23/2022, 4:19 p.m
After reports of parties during the corona lockdown, the British government has come under massive criticism. Now Prime Minister Johnson’s party is threatened with fresh trouble: Former Secretary of State Ghani has accused the Tories of having lost her position because of her Muslim faith.
The British government, which is under massive pressure because of corona violations, is now also accused of Islamophobia: the former State Secretary Nusrat Ghani said in an interview with the “Sunday Times” that she had lost her government office because of her religious affiliation. Among other things, she was told that her status as “Muslim State Secretary made colleagues uncomfortable.”
Ghani, who belongs to Johnson’s Tory party, was dismissed as Secretary of State for Transport in 2020. She told the Sunday Times that a representative of the top group had told her that her “being a Muslim” played a role in the dismissal. She felt “humiliated and powerless” in the matter.
In a highly unusual move, MP Mark Spencer identified himself as the parliamentary leader in question on Sunday. He dismissed Ghani’s allegations as “completely false” and “defamatory”. “I never used the words attributed to me,” he wrote on Twitter. Spencer is the “Chief Whip” of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government. He is responsible for group discipline and his role is similar to that of parliamentary secretary.
Johnson also knew about allegations
Ghani’s allegations come at a bad time for Johnson’s government. Tory MP William Wragg recently accused the government’s so-called whips of “blackmailing” internal party critics of Johnson in order to prevent the prime minister from being overthrown. Johnson has been under pressure for weeks over reports of breaches of corona regulations by parties at Downing Street. Several Tory politicians have already called for his resignation.
A Downing Street spokesman said Ghani had previously raised her “extremely serious” allegations internally, prompting Johnson to invite her to an interview. Johnson then wrote to the ex-Secretary of State of his “serious concern” and “invited her to initiate a formal complaints process”. But Ghani refrained from doing that. “The Conservative Party does not tolerate any form of prejudice or discrimination,” the spokesman said.
Vaccine Minister Nadhim Zawahi called for an investigation into Ghani’s allegations. “There is no place for Islamophobia or any form of racism in our Conservative Party,” he tweeted. Ghani is a “brilliant parliamentarian”.