NADIA El-Nakla, the wife of First Minister Humza Yousaf, has called out Rishi Sunak for failing to deal with Islamophobia within in his own party, claiming Tory MPs help to stoke far-right hatred aimed at her.
On Friday, the Prime Minister made an impromptu speech outside 10 Downing Street where he railed against “extremist disruption and criminality” and claimed that recently many “streets have been hijacked by small groups who are hostile to our values”.
He then confirmed the UK Government would be implementing a new framework for policing protests in a bid to crackdown on pro-Palestine marches.
Now, El-Nakla has called out Rishi Sunak for failing to address Islamophobic views within his own party before making his speech.
In an article for The Courier, she said: “As a Muslim, Scottish-Palestinian, born and raised in Dundee, it is MPs in the Prime Minister’s party that have directed hate towards me and Muslims across the UK.
"There is no doubt that the comments from Lee Anderson and Suella Braverman were Islamophobic, yet despite repeated questioning Rishi Sunak has refused to call it out for what it is.
“Instead his focus seemed to be small groups of Islamists. I would have liked to know who he was referring to, as all of us have a responsibility to tackle hate and extremism in every form it exists.”
El-Nakla said she receives weekly diatribes of abuse from the far-right yet pointed out that Sunak’s speech did not appear to address these groups.
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She then defended the right of people to protest, particularly over the ongoing slaughter of civilians in Gaza, and said all of the protests she had attended had been peaceful.
She added: “The Prime Minister shouldn’t be blaming peaceful protestors for his own policy failures that have seen him and his party stoke the culture wars for cheap political gain. All at the expense of societal cohesion.”
It comes after Anderson, the former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, was suspended for claiming that Mayor of London Sadiq Khan was controlled by Islamists.
Anderson has refused to apologise for the comment and later blamed the media for “trying to paint this picture that I’m some sort of Islamophobe or racist".
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