Sadiq Khan will accuse Conservative leadership candidates of being willing to “ape and adopt” the language of the far right for short-term political gain, warning that ignoring Islamophobia could have consequences like the New Zealand mosques massacre. The London mayor will say: “As we saw with the Christchurch massacre, this kind of deeply irresponsible behaviour and language has lethal consequences. Khan will say the response from some Tory candidates showed a party “more interested in pandering to the far right at precisely the moment they should be confronting it”. Khan will say he had never wanted “to be defined as the Muslim candidate” or be “a spokesperson for the Muslim faith”. “And though he does not have any reason to believe there is anything endemic in the Tory party that breeds Islamophobia, no organisation is immune from this cancer.

Source: The Guardian June 18, 2019 17:31 UTC