A senior Conservative peer has warned the Labour party not to join a race to the bottom over Israel-Hamas war protests as a council leader urged Keir Starmer to show “sympathy to the plight of Palestinians”.
Sayeeda Warsi criticised Labour for strongly advising its councillors not to attend pro-Palestine demonstrations last weekend, “despite having spent months before the recess fighting the government to protect the right to protest in the public order act”.
Labour councillors are said to be very uneasy over the protest ban, with one saying: “How do we show solidarity to the communities who voted for us to be their voice and represent them?”
Delivering a speech at the University of Leeds on Thursday, Lady Warsi said the response to recent protests was an example of how Muslims are “judged by a harsher standard” and made to feel that they “don’t matter” in society.
Describing the treatment of British Muslim communities in politics, she said: “There is a particular irony to this political struggle because on the one hand the government insists on the observance of ‘fundamental British values’ but when Muslims challenge actions that … undermine respect and tolerance by calling out institutional Islamophobia … when Muslims apply these fundamental British values in their participation in wider society, they are demonised, marginalised, excluded from political arenas and treated as outcasts.”
She referenced the plight of the MP Nus Ghani within the Tory party, after the former chief whip Mark Spencer was cleared of rule-breaking over claims he told Ghani her “Muslimness” played a role in her losing a ministerial position.
Criticising the Conservatives and Labour for their slow progress on tackling Islamophobia, Warsi added: “The Conservatives’ heel-dragging attempts to challenge it after years of campaigning was a whitewash of a report, chaired by a controversial figure with historic anti-Muslim comments and did not even manage to garner the support of Tory Muslim parliamentarians.
“The Labour party too after years of taking that vote for granted, having received over 80% of the Muslim vote, found itself failing to respond to anti-Muslim racism being experienced by its members.”
She warned that the lack of action over the issue could lead to devastating outcomes, citing recent government figures on hate crime showing that “once again Muslims are the most targeted religious group”.
Warsi called on Britons to join the Muslim community’s demand to be “treated equally under the law, to have the right to be heard, for our citizenship to be worth the same as everyone else’s”.
Her remarks come as the Labour mayor of Leicester wrote to Starmer on Thursday about the impression that the party “lacks sympathy for the plight of Palestinians and their present appalling danger and suffering”.
The mayor, Sir Peter Soulsby, told the Labour leader: “I have no doubt at all that you and the party have been entirely right to condemn the brutal terrorist attacks in Israel emanating from Hamas in Gaza.
“However, the impression that has been given is that this condemnation of recent event extends to approving uncritically the Israeli government’s response and of ignoring the decades of injustice and the oppression of Palestinians and the violations of their human rights.
“Muslim councillors are under enormous pressure from their communities, who support Labour values.”
The Guardian has seen another letter to Starmer from at least 72 Labour councillors who are facing pressure from their local communities to resign over the party’s stance.
Remaining anonymous over fear of losing their positions, they told the leader, “we respectfully urge you to recognise the Palestinian struggle and the root causes of this ongoing conflict” otherwise “Muslims will not vote for the Labour party in the next election should you remain leader”. It is understood it has been signed by more than 8,000 British Muslims across England.
The Labour Muslim Network, the Trades Union Congress, and those on the left of the party, have backed calls for a ceasefire.
Richard Burgon, former shadow justice secretary and secretary of Labour’s Socialist Campaign Group, launched an early-day motion on Wednesday calling for a ceasefire in the region; it has been signed by more than 40 cross-party MPs, including Liam Byrne.
The campaign group Momentum has launched an online database identifying Labour MPs who have yet to call for a ceasefire in the region, along with a tool helping activists lobby them by email.
