By suggesting that Islamists had “got control of [Sadiq] Khan” and “control of London”, former Conservative Party deputy chairman Lee Anderson was speaking in patently Islamophobic terms. The Mayor is a Muslim, as are approximately 1.3 million Londoners. To remark that leaves Khan in the pocket of Islamists is racist.
Yet it is proving difficult for senior members of the Government, such as Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden, to say so. Numerous Tory MPs have criticised Anderson’s remarks. Rishi Sunak this morning called them not acceptable and “wrong”. This is true, but they were a specific genre of wrong: Islamophobic. It is a curious oversight, given that on the Government’s own website, it explicitly states that: “Islamist should not be interpreted as a reference to individuals who follow the religion of Islam.”
