Kemi Badenoch Defends Shadow Minister Who Called London Muslim Celebrations an ‘Act of Domination’

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The Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has stood by her Shadow Lord Chancellor, who called Muslims praying at an annual event in London’s Trafalgar Square an “act of domination” from the “Islamism playbook”.

The Prime Minister Keir Starmer described Nick Timothy’s comments, in which he said that such events should not be “welcome” in the UK, as “utterly appalling” and demanded that Badenoch sack him.

The Conservative leader refused to do so, during an exchange at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, insisting that Timothy had merely been defending “British values” with his Tweet.

Asked by Byline Times if the Conservative party also wanted to ban Diwali and Chanukah celebrations, which have also been held annually in Trafalgar Square, including during the eight years that the party ran City Hall under Boris Johnson, Badenoch’s spokesman replied that her objection was to the “exclusionary” nature of the event.

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“She is now the leader. She is making her views known on how she views those events,” he said.

Asked if the Conservative party now also wanted to ban all other single sex events in public life, including by non-Muslims, Badenoch’s spokesman replied “no, obviously not”, insisting that they only wanted to ban “exclusionary events…”

When it was pointed out by Byline Times that all single sex events are exclusionary by definition, he replied that “there’s a difference between public events that have male and female categories and what is ostensibly a fully open event that excludes women.”

Badenoch has previously campaigned repeatedly for the maintenance of single sex public spaces, in relation to women and trans people.

When a Jewish News journalist pointed out that similarly large single sex prayer events are also held by Orthodox Jews in London, Badenoch’s representative replied that the Iftar event was “different”, without explaining how.

Photos from the event show Muslim women were also present in the square.

Badenoch’s spokesman was asked what she thought of Timothy’s Tweet, which had made no mention of the single sex nature of the prayers at the event, and had merely objected to the “mass ritual prayer” of the event, which he described as an “act of domination” by Islamists.

“I am not suggesting everybody at Trafalgar Square last night is an Islamist, but the domination of public places is straight from the Islamist playbook,” Timothy Tweeted.

“I’m saying what I am saying. It’s my interpretation of what he said. I’m gonna stick with what I’ve said” he replied, adding that “

“You saw in the chamber she stood by Nick Timothy.”

When asked again by Byline Times whether the Conservative party was simply “singling out one religion here and ignoring examples of other religions doing the same” Badenoch’s spokesman replied that “The Conservatives had the first Muslim Chancellor. We had the first Muslim Foreign Secretary.”

Badenoch has also faced allegations of being anti-Muslim in the past.

In 2024 she described Muslim groups in Nigeria as her “ethnic enemies”, telling the Spectator magazine that: “I find it interesting that everybody defines me as being Nigerian… I identify less with the country than with the specific ethnicity [Yoruba]. That’s what I really am. I have nothing in common with the people from the north of the country, the Boko Haram where the Islamism is, those were our ethnic enemies and yet you end up being lumped in with those people.”