London, Thanasis Gavos

Accusations of Islamophobia in the ranks of the party are being faced by the ruling Conservatives in the United Kingdom due to the statements of a prominent executive who was eventually removed from the parliamentary group.

Former Conservative Party deputy leader Lee Anderson last week accused London Mayor Sadiq Khan of “handing over” the capital to Islamists.

Mr Anderson has been criticized in the past for controversial statements that place him politically on the far right wing of the Tories.

In an interview with GB News, he said: “I don’t think the Islamists have taken control of our country, but what I really think is that they have taken control of Khan and they have taken control of London. He has truly handed over our capital to his people.”

The statement drew criticism from the opposition, Sadiq Khan, Muslim organizations in Britain, and Muslim Tory politicians, leading to Mr Anderson being kicked out of the caucus when he refused to apologise.

The opposition accuses Prime Minister Sunak of not being able to deal with Islamophobia in the party, an accusation that has been made on various occasions in the past, but also that he is afraid of confronting the right wing of his party.

On Monday morning, in his first statement on the issue, Mr Sunak denied there were “Islamophobic tendencies” in his party, calling Anderson’s statements “unacceptable” and “wrong”, adding that “words matter”.

However, Mr Sunak is under further pressure on the same issue, as his former Home Secretary and now fiercest internal party critic Suella Braverman argued in an article in the Telegraph that “Islamists are now in control of Britain”.

Opposition calls for Ms Braverman’s ouster from the caucus do not stop there, as another representative of the far right wing of the Tories, Rishi Sunak’s predecessor as Prime Minister Liz Truss, is also being targeted.

The shortest-lived prime minister in the history of the United Kingdom took part a few days ago in an event of an ultra-conservative organization in the USA. There she blamed the “deep state” in the UK for her ouster as prime minister.

Shortly afterwards, she remained silent when, on the same panel, Steve Bannon, a far-right former adviser to Donald Trump, called Tommy Robinson, the most recognizable representative of the far right in the UK and an opponent of Islam, a “hero”.

It is noted that the Labor leader Sir Keir Starmer has recently received criticism from the Muslim community in the United Kingdom due to his reluctance until recently to support an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

Mr. Starmer, moreover, focused at the beginning of his leadership of the party on actions that would prove that the era of anti-Semitic phenomena manifested during the presidency of Jeremy Corbyn has passed.