Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES Conservative chairman James Cleverly has apologised for cases of Islamophobia in his party. Mr Cleverly said he was "sorry" when Tory members and candidates "do or say things that are wrong". But he added that he was "confident" there was now "a robust mechanism" in place to deal with the issue. The Muslim Council of Britain has accused the Tory party of having a "blind spot for this type of racism" and of not doing enough to tackle it. Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live's Pienaar's Politics, Mr Cleverly said an investigation into prejudice in his party will get under way before the end of the year. Tories probe candidates over anti-Semitism claims Muslim Council criticises Tories over Islamophobia Tory candidate suspended amid 'anti-Muslim' claims Corbyn apologises over anti-Semitism row Burka comments He said: "We said it will be initiated this calendar year. "We have been doing, in parallel to the general election campaign, preparatory work ahead of that and we'll be making a more formal announcement as soon as the election is done. "It will specifically look into Islamophobia in my party. It will, by definition, also have to look at other stuff as well, because you can't always unpick this. "But we are and absolutely have always been clear on this. We recognise that in mass membership organisations that there will always be people that say and do things which are completely inappropriate." Tory leader Boris Johnson has also come in for criticism for a newspaper column last year in which he said Muslim women wearing burkas "look like letter boxes". Tory election candidate Parvez Akhtar said the effect of the column has been "to reinforce the widely held view that the Conservative Party has a blind spot when it comes to Muslims". Mr Cleverly told John Pienaar the prime minister had already apologised for his comments. 'Liberal democracy' Pushed again after being informed that Mr Johnson only apologised for any offence caused by the comments, not the comments themselves, he added: "If you read the piece, the points that he was making in that piece was that unlike other European countries who have put a blanket ban on the wearing of the burka or hijab, the UK does not do that. "The point he was making was that actually in a healthy liberal democracy like we have here in the UK, just because someone has, you know, a personal discomfort with that does not mean that it should be banned. "That is a defence of our liberal democracy." Earlier in the election campaign, Mr Johnson himself apologised for the "hurt and offence" caused by Islamophobia within the Conservative Party ranks. Mr Cleverly claimed there was a "massive gulf" between the scale of Labour's problems with anti-Semitism and the issue of Islamophobia in the Conservative Party. Candidates suspended Asked if he would apologise for cases of Islamophobia in his party, Mr Cleverly said: "Well, of course, I'm sorry. And I'm sorry when, you know, people do or say things that are wrong. "I am confident that my party has a robust mechanism for dealing with it. "We investigate this. It's done independently. We have independent people looking at this and they come to adjudications and where people have had to be either sanctioned or expelled from the party. That has happened." The Conservative Party suspended a number of members last month after the Guardian supplied it with a dossier produced by an anonymous Twitter user containing examples of allegedly Islamophobic social media posts. A number of members were also suspended in September, after the BBC highlighted 20 cases to the party of members posting or endorsing Islamophobic material online. The Scottish Conservatives suspended a Glasgow election candidate, Flora Scarabello, after she was accused of using "anti-Muslim language". And the party's candidate in Aberdeen North, Ryan Houghton, was suspended over alleged anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and homophobic comments he made seven years ago. Mr Houghton has apologised for any hurt caused but insisted the comments were taken out of context.
If you don't know why maybe you should not be debating Ps I am going to kip btw work in the morning so I will not be responding
Gove He's the absolute worst. Not surprised a guy who believes the same thing he believed about teachers is lauding him.
I've sat here and answered everything put to me whilst you usually give a wrong view and when challenged on it you don't have the answers so don't bother to reply. Like now actually, you'd rather give an arsey answer than engage your brain to put your view across properly.
Well, the outgoing Tory government was in a sort-of coalition with the DUP. The DUP has links with Loyalist paramilitaries and was the one major party/entity on the island of Ireland which opposed the Good Friday Agreement. The government of Eire was up for giving up its claim to the north, the UUP was up for compromise, the British government was up for giving concessions to the nationalists, finally Sinn Fein was up for stopping the killing, etc, etc. Only the DUP wanted to continue with the madness of no change, Protestant supremacy and the sectarian tit-for-tat murders going on & on. So well done the party you support clinging on to power by making pacts with such nutters, who are, er, terrorist sympathisers.
Fookin hell. Europe was definitely not united after the war and there was a bloody Great Wall that divided ultra left wing socialism (communists) from the West. Don't know of many people trying to escape to the East, but there were millions wanting to escape to the West. The only thing that stopped the USSR expanding west was NATO and the threat of nuclear war. It would be a huge mistake to ever underestimate Putin and his cronies. Corbyn is an anti West, anti NATO, political dinosaur wanting to dismantle the West. So I would imagine Putin being welcomed at the doors of No 10. North fekin Korea are not using nuclear weapons because they know that they would be annihilated if they tried. It’s called MAD for a reason, mutually assured destruction. Corbyn is still trying to disunite and divide the country when, as in the war, we need to unite to meet some of the biggest threats to our futures, i.e. global pollution and global warming......I think we have 5 years to the tipping point. Ho hum, I’m off back down to the pub
again you’re a strange fella how can you bring a singer as an argument, no I’ve never gone out my way to listen to him as I think all of the Beatles are ****e.
Areally good back and forth exchange of veiws this thread has been. Opinions given, answered and discussed. Do you have problems discussing with folk not of your viewpoint. ?
EXTREME SOCIALISM ??? My my - is the NHS Extreme Is free school education extreme Is affordable/free university extreme Is having VITAL services, water, gas, electricity back in OUR control exreme they even contributed greatly to the national purse instead rich speculators. Is having a decent wage no matter your skill set. So a labourer can feed his family. Is building affordable housing extreme. KTF JC4PM
State control of utilities with, in John McDonnell's words, "boards to run them made up of you, the customer, you the worker" sounds remarkably similar to a worker's soviet. That experiment worked well...
Scary to think that in all likelihood that man will be our PM on Friday.... When the NHS is gone or more accurately when the NHS cant afford to buy the drugs to treat people and is quickly turned into a service where you will need Health Insurance or go without that, people will look back at things like this and be ashamed. But lets not forget "Dither, Delay, Get Brexit Done" and repeat louder and louder