“I will not pretend that this has not affected my confidence in the party,” British lawmaker Nusrat Ghani said.
London:
A British lawmaker has said she was fired from a ministerial job in Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government, in part because her Muslim faith made colleagues uncomfortable, the Sunday Times reported.
Nusrat Ghani, 49, who lost her job as a junior transport minister in February 2020, told the newspaper she had heard of a “whip” – an enforcer of parliamentary discipline – that her “Muslimness” had been put forward as a problem in her resignation .
There was no immediate response to her comments from Johnson’s Downing Street office, but Mark Spencer, the government chief executive, said he was the person at the center of Ghani’s allegations.
“These allegations are completely false and I consider them defamatory,” he said on Twitter. “I never used those words that are attributed to me.”
Ghani’s comments come after one of her Conservative colleagues said he would meet with police to discuss allegations that the government had tried to “blackmail” lawmakers suspected of trying to force Johnson from office over public anger over parties in the country. his Downing Street office were held during COVID lockdowns.
The scandals have stripped public support from both Johnson personally and his party, bringing him the most serious crisis of his premiership.
“I was told that at the Downing Street reshuffle meeting that ‘Muslimness’ was presented as a ‘problem,’ that my status as a ‘Muslim women’s minister’ made my colleagues uncomfortable,” the newspaper quoted Ghani, Britain’s first female Muslim minister as saying. Britain, as a saying.
“I will not pretend that this has not shaken my confidence in the party and I have at times seriously considered continuing as a Member of Parliament.”
In response, Spencer said Ghani had refused to submit the matter to a formal internal investigation when she first raised the issue last March.
The Conservative Party has faced accusations of Islamophobia before, and a report from May last year criticized it for how it handled complaints of discrimination against Muslims.
The report also prompted Johnson to issue a qualified apology for any crime caused by his past comments on Islam, including a newspaper column in which he referred to women wearing burqas as “walking around like mailboxes.”
Main opposition Labor leader Keir Starmer said Conservatives should investigate Ghani’s account immediately.
“This is shocking to read,” he said on Twitter.
HARASSMENT AND BLACKMAIL
Ghani’s comments about the whips’ behavior also echo the accusations made by another senior conservative, William Wragg, that some of his colleagues had faced harassment and blackmail for their desire to overthrow Johnson.
“Nus is very brave to speak out. I was really shocked to hear of her experience,” Wragg said on Twitter on Saturday. He has told the Daily Telegraph that he will meet with police early next week to discuss his allegations.
Johnson has said he has not seen or heard of any evidence to support Wragg’s claims. His office has said it would look at such evidence “very carefully”.
“As with such allegations, it would be considered if a criminal offense is reported to the Met,” a spokesman for London’s Metropolitan Police said.
Johnson, who won his party’s largest majority in more than 30 years in 2019, is fighting to bolster his authority after the ‘party gate’ scandals, which followed criticism of the government’s handling of a corruption spat and other missteps.
Johnson, who has repeatedly apologized to the parties and said he was unaware of much of it, has admitted to attending what he believes was a work event on May 20 last year when social mixing was largely banned. used to be. By invitation, staff were asked to “bring their own drinks” to the event.
Senior official Sue Gray is expected to deliver a report to the parties next week, with many conservative lawmakers saying they would await her findings before deciding whether to take action to overthrow Johnson.
The Sunday Times also reported that Gray was investigating whether illegal parties had been held at Johnson’s private apartment in Downing Street.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.)
