It is open season on Muslims in the Tory leadership contest. The main candidates seem to be conspiring to ramp up Islamophobia, heedless of the consequences.
Frontrunner Robert Jenrick was quick off the mark to propose banning the shouting of “Allahu akbar” in public – the Islamic invocation “God is great.” Why it is only Muslims who cannot express their devotion publicly is something Jenrick has not deigned to explain.
Then Kemi Badenoch, his main rival on the right, protested that too many immigrants “hate Israel.”
The dog whistling here is deafening. By “migrant” she clearly means Muslim, since it is people of that faith worldwide who are generally staunchest in their support for the Palestinian people.
Badenoch’s demagoguery is of course an absurdity. Support for Israel is not a “British value” no matter how much she may pretend otherwise.
If backing Israel becomes a test of British citizenship then this would become a vastly depopulated island overnight.
Not to be outdone, Jenrick then proposed sticking the Israeli flag at every port of entry to the UK, presumably to deter Muslims from proceeding further.
And all the candidates have sought to outbid each other in pledging a clampdown on migration.
This is dangerous rhetoric, as this summer’s far right riots showed. For those taking part, the categories of migrant and Muslim appeared indistinguishable, and their violence was directed at mosques and refugee centres alike.
Yet leading Tories continue to heap fuel on the flames in the grubby search for votes from the party’s reactionary membership. Their prejudices were on display once again in Birmingham this week, with one representative calling for the rehabilitation of Enoch Powell.
It is no surprise that perhaps the Tories’ most visible and voluble Muslim, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, has called it quits. She has resigned the Conservative whip in the Lords, saying that the party has become too right-wing.
Her new book, Muslims Don’t Matter, is directed squarely at her former colleagues, who have been indifferent to anti-Muslim racism at best or actively indulged it at worst.
The news that Michael Gove, who probably beats stiff competition to rank as the Tories’ leading Islamophobe of recent years, is to become editor of the party’s intellectual bible, The Spectator, indicates that the situation is not going to improve any time soon.
Yet who is going to call out this inflammatory bigotry? Keir Starmer did finally find his voice at Labour conference and condemned the racism behind the riots.
But he has yet to actually speak about Islamophobia, nor has he sought to meet any representative Muslim organisations since he assumed office, a disgraceful omission.
It appears that he still has one eye on Reform UK voters and does not wish to disturb their prejudices too much.
That appears to Labour strategists as a greater problem than the mass defection of long-standing Labour voters in the Muslim community at the general election.
So it falls to the labour movement and campaigning organisations to denounce Islamophobia.
This is a class issue. Different sections of the working class face specific problems which call for particular responses and campaigns.
Working-class unity, which must embrace the millions of workers of Muslim faith, cannot be established simply by incantation. Muslim people need to see that the wider movement stands alongside them in this moment.
And whoever wins the sordid race to lead the Conservative Party should realise that the attempt to weaponise racism for political advantage will be resisted by not just the labour movement but all people of goodwill.
At a time of intensifying hate we must unambiguously stand with the Muslim community.
