Rishi Sunak is to take no action against Mark Spencer, a minister and former chief whip, over an allegation that he cited the “Muslimness” of his colleague Nusrat Ghani in sacking her from the frontbench.
How did it begin? In January last year, Ghani, the MP for Wealden since 2015, told the Sunday Times she had been sacked as a transport minister in 2020 after she was told during a meeting in Downing Street that “Muslimness was raised as an issue”. A colleague, she said, told her that her “Muslim woman minister status was making colleagues feel uncomfortable”. Mark Spencer, who was Boris Johnson’s chief whip at the time and is now a junior environment minister, later identified himself as the person alleged to have said this, but denied the claims. What happened next? Downing Street tried to defuse the row by saying Johnson had met Ghani, expressing his “serious concern” and inviting her to make a formal complaint, which she chose not to do. But a clearly annoyed Ghani responded by saying Johnson had told her “he could not get involved” and suggested she use the internal Conservative party complaints process, something she felt was inappropriate for an exchange that took place as part of government proceedings. She called for a full investigation. How was the incident investigated? A day after the claims surfaced, Downing Street said Johnson had ordered the Cabinet Office to conduct an inquiry into Ghani’s allegations. It was initially led by Christopher Geidt, Johnson’s adviser on ethics, who was asked to look into whether Spencer might have broken the code of conduct for ministers. The process was delayed when Lord Geidt resigned in June last year after conceding that Johnson may have himself broken the ministerial code in attending lockdown-breaking parties and then claiming that all rules were followed. Geidt’s successor, Sir Laurie Magnus, was only appointed in December, taking over the investigation. What did Magnus find? While saying that the conversation between Ghani and Spencer, which he termed an “exit interview”, was “clearly an unsatisfactory experience for Ms Ghani”, Magnus said the two parties disputed what had happened and there were no independent witnesses. The inconclusive evidence meant he could not say Spencer breached the ministerial code, although there were clearly “procedural and pastoral lessons to be drawn”, Magnus added in a letter to Sunak. What has been the reaction? In a statement, Ghani, who is now a Cabinet Office minister, said Magnus’s report found “no criticism or doubt expressed regarding my version of events”. She said of the comment: “The impact of being told this was devastating and my motivation in pursuing the complaint was to ensure it wasn’t buried, but that it ended with me so that no other colleague would have to endure anything similar.” Allies of Ghani, speaking anonymously, have been more outspoken, alleging a “cover-up”. Does the Conservative party have an issue with Islamophobia? Some would argue it does. In 2019, the Guardian revealed how 15 Conservative councillors who had been suspended for posting Islamophobic or racist content online had had their memberships reinstated. In 2020, a poll commissioned by Hope Not Hate found almost half of Tory party members believed Islam was “a threat to the British way of life”, and nearly 60% thought “there are no-go areas in Britain where sharia law dominates and non-Muslims cannot enter”.