A LEADING MEMBER of Britain’s ruling Conservative Party has claimed that prejudice against Islam and Muslims in general has become socially acceptable in the UK.

Sayeeda Warsi has become the first Muslim woman to serve in the British cabinet but she is to give a speech at Leicester University in which she will says prejudice against Muslims has “passed the dinner-table” test. The Daily Telegraph brought excerpts from her speech to light today which she will use to highlight what she sees as Islamophobia pervading British society.

She is also arguing that labelling Muslims as either “moderate” or “extremist” is not helpful in the “ongoing battle against bigotry”. Her speech reads:

It’s not a big leap of imagination to predict where the talk of ‘moderate’ Muslims leads; in the factory, where they’ve just hired a Muslim worker, the boss says to his employees: ‘Not to worry, he’s only fairly Muslim.

In the school, the kids say: ‘The family next door are Muslim but they’re not too bad’.

And in the road, as a woman walks past wearing a burka, the passers-by think: ‘That woman’s either oppressed or is making a political statement’.