Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, a former UK minister, made a keynote speech at the University of Leeds Thursday evening, referencing polling, policy decisions and the handling of high-profile events as examples of how British Muslims are held to higher standards than other fellow citizens.
She stressed this is creating a climate of fear within a community of nearly four million, urging the end of culture wars, and demanding policymakers to change course to avoid potentially catastrophic outcomes.
In her speech Warsi said: “This week is Hate Crime Awareness Week and recently published government figures on hate crime once again show in the year ending March 2023, a rise in religiously motivated hate crime and once again Muslims are the most targeted religious group.”
“There is a particular irony to this political struggle. While the government insists on the observance of ‘Fundamental British Values’, when Muslims apply Fundamental British Values in their participation in wider society, they are demonised, marginalised, excluded from political arenas and treated as outcasts,” she noted.
Continuing to fight the battle to rid her party of Islamophobia, she challenged the Labour Party not to partake in a race to the bottom and urged mainstream politics to remain a place where British Muslims are authentically heard.
She asked fellow Brits who believe in equality and fairness to join British Muslims.
