Kemi Badenoch has refused to restore the whip to Sayeeda Warsi, despite her having been cleared of wrongdoing over a tweet calling Rishi Sunak a “coconut”.
The former party chair, now a peer, resigned the Tory whip in the Lords in September when it emerged she was being investigated over the tweet.
The Independent has now learnt that the disciplinary panel cleared Baroness Warsi of being “divisive” and “bringing the party into disrepute”. But despite this, the Tory chief whip in the Lords, Susan Williams, has written to Lady Warsi, who was the UK’s first Muslim cabinet member, saying that she is not welcome back.
Lady Warsi said she was being targeted for warning of rising levels of Islamophobia in the Conservative Party.
It comes amid the row over calls for an inquiry into grooming gangs, which has seen the Tories accused of political opportunism.
On Tuesday, Ms Badenoch stood by her shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick as he railed against Muslims and “alien cultures importing medieval attitudes” in relation to the grooming gang scandal. His comments caused outrage and there were calls for him to be sacked.
In a letter from Baroness Williams, seen by The Independent, Baroness Warsi was told: “While your membership of the Conservative Party is unaffected, restoring the party whip is a different matter.
“It is a privilege, not a right, and following careful consideration, I cannot be confident that you have any intention of stopping your public denigration of our party and its successive leaders. This behaviour is not acceptable and I will not allow it from Conservative peers.”
It is understood that the Tory leadership objects to comments Baroness Warsi has made previously about the party being Islamophobic and “sliding into far-right extremism”.
However, Baroness Warsi has insisted she has not asked to have the whip restored, and accused the Tories of “game playing”.
In a statement, Baroness Warsi told The Independent that the party was attempting to “demonise” her for challenging its “rising levels of extremism, racism and Islamophobia”.
The move appears to be an attempt to shore up the party on the right, in light of concerns over voters and members alike defecting to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. Recent high-profile right-wing defections have included three former MPs, a major donor, and the founder of the Conservative Home website.
Baroness Warsi’s appointment as party chair in 2010 by David Cameron was a sign of modernisation in the Conservative Party, but since then she has been pushed back to the fringe as the Tories embraced Brexit and hardline rhetoric on immigration.
The peer had suggested she might vote for Ms Badenoch in last year’s leadership election, before changing her mind.
