Racism in the British Conservative Party

[1] In the constituency of Smethwick during the 1964 general election, supporters of Conservative candidate Peter Griffiths were reported to have used the slogan "if you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour".

"[8] Tim Stanley of The Telegraph notes that while "there were pockets of racism on the Left as well as the Right ... there's no denying that the Tory fringes became a bastion of ugliness that the present-day party is still trying to distance itself from".

[14][15] An opinion poll commissioned by the BBC television programme Panorama in December 1968 found that eight per cent of immigrants believed they had been treated worse by white people since Powell's speech.

Some Conservative MPs on the right of the party, such as Duncan Sandys, Gerald Nabarro and Teddy Taylor, spoke out against his sacking and defended Powell's comments.

[21] On 3 June 1970, Labour MP Tony Benn also criticised Powell, saying "the flag of racialism which is being hoisted over Wolverhampton is beginning to look like the one which "fluttered 25 years ago over Dachau and Belsen".

[30] The Conservative government acknowledged that the 1971 Immigration Act would be seen as disproportionately benefiting "the 'white' Commonwealth", but Home Secretary Reginald Maudling defended the partiality clause, saying it "recognised the family connection with the British diaspora abroad and was not a racial concept".

[32] In 2014, the then Defence Secretary Michael Fallon apologised for saying that British towns were being "swamped" and "under siege [with] large numbers of migrant workers and people claiming benefits"; these comments were likened by freelance writer Stuart Jeffries in The Guardian to Thatcher and Enoch Powell's rhetoric.

[37] In his memoirs, he commented that "Margaret would quite rightly denounce the violence of ANC terrorism, but without ever acknowledging, even by the tone of voice, that the whole white-controlled repressive structure of the apartheid legal system was bound itself to provoke inter-racial conflict".

[43] Notes by Botha's foreign minister written on his 1984 trip to the UK claim that Thatcher told him that "apartheid had to be dismantled, Mandela and other prisoners released" as well as stopping the "forcible removal of urban blacks".

[44] Alan Merrydew of the Canadian broadcaster BCTV News asked Thatcher what her response was "to a reported ANC statement that they will target British firms in South Africa?"

[46]During his visit to Britain five months after his release from prison, Nelson Mandela praised Thatcher: "She is an enemy of apartheid ... We have much to thank her for",[42] but noted that they were in disagreement on how to end the practise.

[47] He and his wife boycotted a lecture given at the Federal Theological Institute by former British prime minister Alec Douglas-Home in the 1960s; Tutu noted that they did so because the Conservative Party had "behaved abominably over issues which touched our hearts most nearly".

[48] In 1989, future prime minister David Cameron went on a "sanctions-busting jolly" to South Africa with the anti-sanctions Conservative Research Department, for which he was criticised by veteran anti-apartheid campaigner and Labour MP Peter Hain.

[49] Major's ministry was marked to a greater effort to acknowledge Britain's cultural and ethnic diversity yet continue with a "dual interventionist strategy" of combining immigration controls with anti-discriminatory measures.

[64] During the debate, Conservative peer Lord Brook of Sutton Mandeville called for Dixon-Smith to apologise for the comment, which he did immediately; however, the racist origins of the phrase (referring to escaped slaves from the American Deep South) caused widespread criticism from all political parties.

[70][58] In 2002, Johnson described black people as "piccaninnies" with "watermelon smiles" in a Telegraph article about then-prime minister Tony Blair visiting West Africa.

[74] The comments were described as "deeply offensive" by Churchill's grandson, Conservative MP Sir Nicholas Soames, who called the article "deplorable" and "completely idiotic".

Although Rudd was seen as having a more relaxed attitude towards race and immigration,[78] her 2016 conference speech was criticised by the leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, as fanning "the flames of xenophobia and hatred" by forcing firms to declare the percentage of foreign workers they employ.

[79][80] LBC radio host James O'Brien likened the speech to Chapter 2 of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf;[80] this analogy was criticised by Ed West in The Spectator.

Rudd, May and Conservative Party chairman Brandon Lewis were accused by some, such as Hugh Muir and Hannah Jane Parkinson in The Guardian, of institutional racism by defending a policy which disproportionately affected black Britons.

[82][83] British Afro-Caribbean academic Kehinde Andrews wrote for CNN: "Public and political pressure has forced Prime Minster [sic] Theresa May to apologize.

"[84] Parkinson also accused the government of racist hypocrisy, in that it was forcing the Windrush generation of British nationals to prove their identity to stay in the UK, while lessening restrictions on foreign oligarchs.

[87] In September 2018, as members of ACRE, Conservative MEPs supported the right-wing populist Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, against a motion to censure him in the European Parliament.

[88] The Board of Deputies of British Jews accused the Conservative government of defending Hungary's "appalling track record" of "vivid antisemitism", saying: "we are very alarmed by the messages at the heart of Orbán's election campaign, including his comments about 'Muslim invaders', calling migrants poison, and the vivid antisemitism in the relentless campaign against Jewish philanthropist George Soros.

[88] In February 2019, Nadine Dorries referred to political commentator Ash Sarkar as prospective Labour Party candidate Faiza Shaheen, an action which was subsequently criticised by Sayeeda Warsi and others.

[94] David Whittingham, Conservative councillor for Fareham in Portsmouth, was suspended in 2016 after a "racist rant" to senior officers, in which he expressed his disapproval of foreigners living on the same road as him.

[94][95] In June 2017, Rosemary Carroll (Conservative councillor for – and former mayor of – Pendle) was suspended for three months after she compared Asian benefit claimants to dogs in a Facebook post.

[98] In July 2017, Conservative MP Anne Marie Morris used the phrase "nigger in the woodpile" in reference to a "no-deal" Brexit at a meeting of Eurosceptics in central London.

[102] Labour MP David Lammy tweeted "No 10 broke a precedent and snubbed Britain's first black archbishop for a peerage because it says the House of Lords is too large, but it made room for Ian Botham, Claire Fox and Theresa May's husband.