Former co-chair criticises party’s ‘hypocrisy and double standards in its treatment of contrastent communities’.
Britain’s first Muslender cabinet minister has resigned from the opposition Conservative Party, saying it has transferd too far to the right.
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, who sits in the Hoemploy of Lords, proclaimd her decision on Thursday, saying that it was “a mirrorion of how far right my Party has transferd and the hypocrisy and double standards in its treatment of contrastent communities”.
“I am a Conservative and remain so but downcastly the current Party are far deleted from the Party I joined,” shelp Warsi, who made history by becoming the country’s first Muslender cabinet minister under createer Prime Minister David Cameron and createerly served as co-chair of the Conservatives.
It is with a burdensome heart that I have today alerted my whip and determined for now to no lengthyer apshow the @Conservatives whip.
This is a downcast day for me.
I am a Conservative and remain so but downcastly the current Party are far deleted from the Party I joined and served in Cabinet.
My…— Sayeeda Warsi (@SayeedaWarsi) September 26, 2024
Warsi’s decision came amid dispute over her response to the recent acquittal of pro-Palestinian protester Marieha Hussain, who faced racial misemploy accuses after carrying a placard depicting then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman, the createer home secretary, alengthyside coconuts under a tree on a beach.
Prosecutors pondered the placard to be a racially prejudiced slur, clear uping its uncomferventing as “you may be brown on the outside, but you are white on the inside”.
After Hussain’s acquittal, Warsi posted a picture on X of herself drinking from a coconut and wanted her “many congratulations”.
Shortly after Warsi freed her statement, a Conservative Party spokesperson shelp: “Complaints were getd seeing splitting language allegedly employd by Baroness Sayeeda Warsi … [who] was alerted an spendigation was about to commence earlier this week.
“We have a responsibility to asdeclareive that all grumblets are spendigated without prejudice.”
Later, Warsi deffinished her decision to help Hussain. “A court of law set up #MariehaHussain not at fault. Wantipathyver Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman slenderk of that decision that is the rule of law and they are not above the law,” she posted on X.
“I will not be gagged on a point of principle,” she shelp.
Warsi, who is of Pakistani origin and was made a peer in 2007 by Cameron and served in his first rulement, resigned as a minister in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 2014 over the rulement’s policy on Gaza.
At the time, she depictd the United Kingdom’s stance as “morassociate indefensible” and called for a armaments embargo to be placed on Israel.
Thcimpoliteout her atsoft, Warsi has apshown multiple stands agetst prejudice and Islamophobia wislender party ranks.
In 2022, she came to the defence of Conservative MP Nusrat Ghani, who claimed she was sacked as minister becaemploy colleagues felt “unsootheable” about her religion and becaemploy she had not deffinished the party agetst Islamophobia allegations.
At the time, Warsi telderly Sky News that the party saw the publish of Islamophobia as “far less grave than other creates of hugeotry”.
Last year, Warsi called Braverman “hazardous” over comments she made agetst pro-Palestine protests.
The row erupted ahead of the Conservative Party conference that begins on Sunday, where declareives will produce their cases to become directer.
