Lisa Nandy "troubled" by Labour veteran's Islam comments

Trevor Phillips, an anti-racism campaigner and former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, is facing an investigation and possible expulsion from the Labour party over past comments.

He had previously made comments about Pakistani Muslim men sexually abusing children in Northern towns, and saying that Muslims “see the world differently from the rest of us”.

He was suspended from the Labour Party earlier this week over the Islamophobia allegations.

Speaking on Good Morning Britain, Wigan’s MP Ms Nandy was the first Labour leadership hopeful to address his suspension from the party, saying she had “been troubled” by the allegations.

“I don’t know if there is something to these allegations or not,” she said.

“I have admired a lot of the work that Trevor Phillips has done in combatting racism in the last few years.

“But I have also been troubled by some of the things he has said about Islam.”

She added: “He has also made a string of comments about how Muslims are different - and how they think in particular ways.

“There is something problematic about how he says, on one hand, you can’t group people together and therefore they experience and then, on the other hand, he has grouped them together.”

“I think this just highlight how badly discredited the Labour party has become about how we handle complaints.”

She also spoke about the issue on Twitter, writing: “Muslims aren’t the first people in this country to be told ‘they’ don’t want to fit in & are different by virtue of their race or religion. Just because Islamophobia has become, as @SayeedaWarsi puts it, acceptable at the dinner table doesn’t make it okay.”

She added: “Complaints must be investigated and Islamophobia must be taken as seriously as any form of prejudice.”

The Daily Telegraph reported that Mr Phillips, 66, has called on the party’s leadership candidates - Keir Starmer, Ms Nandy and Rebecca Long-Bailey, to publicly say whether they support his suspension from the party over allegations of Islamophobia.

Mr Phillips told the paper the issue was a “test for the kind of party these candidates want to lead”.

His call was supported by the Government’s antisemitism adviser Lord Mann, who said: “It is a mark of leadership... either back the investigation or back Trevor Phillips.

“To suspend the first head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission is not a sit on the fence issue.”

However, he has defended his statements, including that it was “nonsense” to define being anti-Islam as racist as Muslims do not identify as a race.