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Senior Tories concerned about Gove’s views on Muslims: Lady Warsi

Friday, 29 March 2019 11:17 PM [ Last Update: Friday, 29 March 2019 11:36 PM ]

Michael Gove, Britain's secretary of environment, food and rural affairs

Sayeeda Hussain Warsi, the former co-chair of the Conservative Party and Britain’s first Muslim to serve in cabinet, has said she is fearful of the idea of Michael Gove becoming prime minister. Some view Gove as an "Islamophobe" due to his anti-Muslim views.

In an interview with The Guardian on Friday, Warsi, a member of the House of Lords, said she and other senior members of the Conservative Party are concerned about Gove’s views on British Muslims.

On Wednesday, British Prime Minister Theresa May announced she was prepared to step down before the next phase of Brexit negotiations. Gove, the secretary of environment, is among the leading candidates to replace May.

Lady Warsi said any party that elected Gove as a leader “has got major problems.”

Asked what she thought about the idea of Gove replacing the current prime minister, she said, “I just don’t even want to imagine it. I’ve sat in too many meetings, I’ve done everything from rolling my eyes, to thinking, gosh, thank God he’s not prime minister.”

Warsi said there were other senior Conservative politicians who also had serious concerns about him. “I’m not the only one to raise concerns about Michael. Ken Clarke has spoken about it, even his friends close to him. Even David Cameron has spoken about concerns about the way he views the world and the way he views certain communities.”

Following the 2005 London tube and bus bombings, Gove wrote a highly controversial book, Celsius 7/7, in which he railed against Muslims. He stated that “a sizeable minority” of Britain’s 1.8 million Muslims held “rejectionist Islamist views.”

In the book, he argued that Islamism is akin to fascism and communism.

“The West faces a challenge to its values, culture and freedom as profound in its way as the threat posed by fascism and communism. But the response to that challenge from many in the west is all too often confused, temporising, weak and compromised,” Gove wrote.

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