Rishi Sunak has been urged to break his silence over a mounting row about Islamophobia as senior Conservatives criticised the “dangerous” rhetoric of the party’s former deputy chair.
Lee Anderson, the MP for Ashfield, was suspended from the Conservative party on Saturday after refusing to apologise for saying Islamists had “got control of” Sadiq Khan . Anderson claimed on GB News that the London mayor had “given our capital city away to his mates”.
The remarks have led to calls for the prime minister to explicitly denounce anti-Muslim bigotry and act to tackle it internally.
Sayeeda Warsi, a Tory peer who was a cabinet minister in David Cameron’s government, said Sunak needed to “find the language” to “call Islamophobia Islamophobia”.
She told the Guardian: “What is it about the prime minister that he can’t even call out anti-Muslim racism and anti-Muslim bigotry? Why can’t he just use those words?”
Asked whether Sunak should explicitly condemn Anderson’s comments as Islamophobia, Warsi said: “Of course he should. If you can’t call racism racism, if you can’t call antisemitism antisemitism, and if you can’t call Islamophobia Islamophobia, then how are we going to fix it?”
この記事は The Guardian の February 26, 2024 版に掲載されています。
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この記事は The Guardian の February 26, 2024 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
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