The former co-chair of the UK’s Conservative Party has resigned after warning that it is sliding into far-right extremism. “It is with a heavy heart that I have today informed my whip and decided for now to no longer take the Conservatives’ whip,” Baroness Sayeeda Warsi said on Thursday.
According to a Middle East Eye report, Warsi, a British lawyer and member of the House of Lords, whose grandfather emigrated to the UK from Pakistan, has been criticising the Conservative Party over its rhetoric on asylum seekers. “I am a Conservative and remain so but sadly the current Party are far removed from the Party I joined and served in Cabinet,” she wrote on X.
“My decision is a reflection of how far right my Party has moved and the hypocrisy and double standards in its treatment of different communities”.
Warsi had spoken out after Tory leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick said in a speech last month that refugee numbers needed to be controlled because those seeking asylum had “completely different lifestyles and values” from people in the UK.
As Warsi found herself increasingly at odds with members of her party, she pushed back, slamming Israel’s war on Gaza and criticising the Conservative Party for abandoning “One Nation” Conservatism.
Her resignation comes as she is slated to publish a new book, Muslims Don’t Matter, saying that Islamophobia has become mainstream and worsened in recent years.
In July, the UK was wracked by far-right riots that erupted after online misinformation went viral, falsely claiming an attacker who killed three children was a Muslim and illegal immigrant.
The 17-year-old charged with the murders, Axel Rudakubana, was born to Christian Rwandan parents in Cardiff in 2006 and moved to the village of Banks in Lancashire in 2013.
The rioting hit cities across the UK and saw mosques targeted in Leeds, Liverpool, Sunderland, Middlesbrough, and Hastings. More than 400 people were arrested.
The riots were also a challenge to the new Labour government of Keir Starmer. MEE exclusively revealed that Labour was supporting the creation of a new Muslim leadership group intended to become the primary point of engagement between Starmer’s government and Muslim communities in the UK.
