The Tories haven’t just popularised Islamophobia – they’ve gentrified it | Nesrine Malik

The lack of pressure on Theresa May to act is an alarming indication of where rightwing politics is taking Britain

The Conservative party has a problem with Muslims. It is not a few bad apples; not a few social media posts taken out of context. The problem has been growing unchecked for years, despite warnings by Muslim party members, and has now become so normalised that incidents are being reported with alarming frequency. Last week, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) called for an independent inquiry into Islamophobia following more-than-weekly occurrences in the party last month. In these past four weeks alone, Conservative party representatives and candidates have called Islam “the new Nazism”, posted a picture of bacon on a door handle as a way to “protect your house from terrorism”, and shared an article that called Muslims “parasites” who “live off the state and breed like rabbits”.

There will be few voters at the ballot box who will shun the Tory party because it makes fellow citizens feel unsafe

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2J3Mbjo