Labour MPs Urge Senior Tory To Apologise For Sharing Tweet Claiming Home Secretary’s "Loyalty Is To Islam"
3 min read
Labour MPs have demanded that Conservative MP and chair of the 1922 Committee Bob Blackman apologise after he shared a tweet that claimed Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s “loyalty is to Islam”.
Blackman retweeted a post on X – formerly Twitter – which showed an old video of Mahmood attending a pro-Palestine protest outside a Sainsbury’s supermarket in 2014.
The tweet, posted on Monday evening by @Suffragent_, wrote of Mahmood: “She now pretends to support Jews after the Bondi Beach attack, but we all know the truth. Her loyalty is to Islam.”
The account regularly tweets far-right content, including claiming that it is “women who are to blame” for allowing migrant men into the UK, and stating that it is the “white man who saves the day again” in the aftermath of the antisemitic terrorist attack in Australia last week.
Some Labour MPs told PoliticsHome they believe Blackman should apologise for retweeting the post about Mahmood, particularly as he chairs the influential 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers. The committee has been a high-profile part of Westminster politics in recent years, as it has overseen a number of Tory party leadership contests.
Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, Sarah Owen, said: "It is deeply irresponsible from a senior politician who should know better. The least he can do is apologise.
“Supporting this wretched far-right ideology used to get one kicked out of the Tory Party, but now it is sadly indicative of how much the Conservatives are willing to cosy up to the far-right to save themselves from irrelevance."
Former Women and Equalities Secretary Anneliese Dodds, who resigned from the government earlier this year, said: “It’s never acceptable to attack someone on the basis of their religion.
“I’m very upset to see that because I believe it’s important we can debate political issues, including within the House of Commons, but reducing that at any point to someone's religion is completely unacceptable, and it really strongly goes against our British values.”
She agreed with Owen that it is “important” that Blackman apologise.
However, a Conservative Party source said it was not up to them to police what individual MPs choose to share on their own social media.
Blackman has refused to apologise, and told PoliticsHome: “Retweets are NOT an endorsement and I certainly do not support the other tweets in any shape or form.
“The important question remains why the Home Secretary is cleansing her social media of a video where she is at and praising a pro-Palestinian demonstration.”
Mahmood's office said it does not wish to comment on the matter, and PoliticsHome has approached the Conservative Party for official comment.
Labour ministers are finalising consultations to create a new definition focused on “anti-Muslim hostility” as the government moves away from the term Islamophobia, following recommendations from an independent working group led by former Conservative cabinet minister Dominic Grieve KC.
PoliticsHome revealed in October that the wording will avoid references to “Islamophobia”, “Muslimness” or “structural”, instead targeting hostility, violence, harassment and prejudicial stereotyping of Muslims, while stressing protections for free speech.
