‘All my life people have told me to lose my Muslimness’ – politicians on their battle with Islamophobia

The former minister Nusrat Ghani has claimed whips told her she had been sacked for being a Muslim. Labour, Lib Dem and Tory colleagues share their own experiences, from being labelled a terrorist sympathiser to being told to change their name

In 2011, Sayeeda Warsi, then a co-chair of the Conservative party, implored her government to take action over the rising tide of anti-Muslim bigotry, which she said had become socially acceptable enough to pass the dinner-table test".

A decade later, it seems too little has changed. Last week, Nusrat Ghani, the Tory MP for Wealden, told the Sunday Times that when she was dismissed from her ministerial post in 2020, she was told by a whip that her Muslimness" had been an issue. The chief whip, Mark Spencer, identified himself as the person who spoke to her, but strongly denied her allegations.