Tory party review into prejudice does not go far enough, says Warsi
TORY PEER Baroness Warsi has said her party’s review into its handling of complaints of discrimination and prejudice does not look at how badly the problem has been dealt with.
The former co-chairwoman of the Conservative Party, who is originally from Dewsbury in West Yorkshire, also said the appointment of Professor Swaran Singh to lead the review does not “bode well”.
The Muslim Council of Britain has already criticised the appointment and reiterated its calls to hold an inquiry specifically into Islamophobia within the party.
The Tories said Prof Singh would look at how it could improve its procedures and ensure “any instances are isolated and that there are robust processes in place to stamp them out”.
Baroness Warsi told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “First of all I can actually live with the fact that the inquiry is broader than Islamophobia. I think what became apparent to me, certainly in the last few months, was that there was incidents of antiSemitism and other forms of racism, so in a way I think having a broader inquiry may actually get to the hub of the issue.”
She said it is an inquiry to look at how the party can improve their processes, adding: “So there’s no look at what has actually gone on, there’s no look at the extent of the cases, there’s no detail of how bad the problem has been and how badly it’s been dealt with.”
Boris Johnson originally promised an independent inquiry into Islamophobia in the party when he was campaigning to be Tory leader last summer.
The commitment was later widened to cover all forms of discrimination and prejudice.