Conservative leader responds to “blatant scare tactics”
Energy Minister Mike O’Brien has been accused of mudslinging over claims that Michael Howard was indifferent to the needs of British Muslims, given the Conservative Party leader’s Jewish roots.
Mr Howard charged Mr O’Brien with mounting a “low personal attack” and adopting “blatant scare tactics”.
In an article for Muslim Weekly, Mr O’Brien said Labour was the only party able to represent Muslims at the general election.
He said his criticisms of Mr Howard were directed to the leader qua leader and not upon his personality.
Mr O’Brien wrote in the article: “Ask yourself what will Michael Howard do for British Muslims?
“Will his foreign policy aim to help Palestine? Will he promote legislation to protect you from religious hatred and discrimination?
“Will he give you the choice of sending your children to a faith school? The last thing we want is to vote in anger and repent at leisure as Michael Howard, with a big smile on his face, walks through the door of Number 10.”
Mr Howard’s response read: “It saddens me greatly that a Labour minister should stoop to such a low personal attack and deploy such blatant scare tactics as this.
“It won’t wash. Muslims know – just like people of other faiths, and of none – that Labour have let them down.”
In the wake of Mr O’Brien’s comments, Conservative chairman Liam Fox wrote to Labour counterpart Ian McCartney, demanding Labour distance itself from the view.
The article also raised the ire of Lib Dem MP, Dr Evan Harris, who was “appalled” at how Mr O’Brien named him specifically and misrepresented the Lib Dem position on incitement to religious hatred.
Mr O’Brien asked rhetorically: “Is it because I am the only Jewish Lib Dem MP?”
He also asked why the article described Mr Howard as the “most prominent Jewish figure in British politics”.
On Wednesday, Mr O’Brien announced plans to send a British Hajj delegation to Mecca to support the estimated 25,000 British Muslims performing the Hajj, the holy pilgrimage.
