Conservative Islamophobia has been blamed on incompetence. Is that credible?

The crux of the matter is that it is an ongoing problem within the party, writes Nadine White

In a 2018 column, Boris Johnson described women who wear the burqa as looking like ‘letterboxes’ (PA)

A review commissioned by Boris Johnson into Islamophobia within the Conservative Party found that it “remains a problem” – but that allegations of institutional racism were not borne out by the evidence from the complaints system.

“We found no attitudes or behaviours within the complaints process or relating to the imposition of sanctions by the party that were discriminatory against any group or individual possessing a protected characteristic, including those with the protected characteristic of being Muslim,” the report by Professor Swaran Singh found.

But the probe failed to satisfy critics, some of whom branded it “a whitewash” and called for the Equality and Human Rights Commission to launch its own investigation.