In an interview this week in the Financial Times (FT), Baroness Warsi, admitted that she has considered leaving politics altogether, an occupation she described as like ‘an abusive relationship’. She also said that she thought Gary Lineker was right in his comments on twitter when he compared UK government ministers language to that used in 1930s Germany.
‘At risk of sliding into rightwing extremism’
She was reflecting on her concerns that the Conservative Party to which she said she remained committed, was ‘at risk of sliding into rightwing extremism’ in relation to recent comments and ‘generalisations’ made about asylum seekers.
As she warned Conservative politicians that they were creating a ‘really dangerous space’, she referred to comments made by immigration minister, Robert Jenrick when he spoke of migrants having ‘completely different lifestyles and values’ from people in the UK and the comments made by the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, who has suggested that there were ‘heightened levels of criminality ..prostitution and drug dealing’ among asylum seekers.
The former Chair of the Conservative Party and former cabinet minister, Baroness Warsi, told the FT that she felt the Conservative Party was making the same mistakes with its ‘rabble rousing’ comments as the Republican Party in the US, when it allowed itself to be dominated by the populism of Donald Trump which she said, ended up losing their way.
Organising a resistance
The Baroness said that she had spoken to a number of like minded colleagues, adding that there were many decent people in her party who were ‘as frustrated’ as she was. She said that she was considering organising a resistance to the recent trends she has seen and she declared:
‘I don’t recognise some of this…we have to save the party from itself…we need to go back to debating what it means to be a conservative’
She confessed to having faced difficulty in speaking out against another politician who was a woman, a Conservative and a person of colour, but she said:
‘I don’t think you can allow those issues to cloud what to me…has seemed abundantly clear for a very long time…that is the terrible form of prejudice and bigotry that we’re seeing…coming out from the mouths of politicians of colour’
Gary Lineker was right
She spoke about her serious concerns about where the current trend could lead. She said:
‘There are only a few steps from [here to] where we end up demonising whole groups of communities…you know, Gary Lineker was right when he said that this is rhetoric from 1930s Germany. It’s deeply worrying…I actually sit up and worry about where we are going with this kind of space in our society’
