Top Tories fuelled riots with ‘divisive language’ on immigration, say party grandees

Tory grandees have accused senior figures in their own party of using divisive language that inflamed anger over immigration before the recent rioting, amid warnings that too many Conservatives have “turned a blind eye” to a shift to the right.

The criticisms come as fears grow on the party’s liberal wing that the leadership election risks pulling the party further into populist polices designed to take on Reform UK.

Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak, who remains Tory leader, was in the US last week and has not commented on the violence since last weekend, or on claims by X owner Elon Musk of “two-tier” policing and “inevitable” civil war in the UK.

Some rioters held up signs emblazoned with “Stop the boats”, the slogan used by Sunak in the election campaign designed to show he was tackling illegal Channel crossings.

Robert Jenrick, one of the Tory leadership frontrunners, drew criticism for saying police should “immediately arrest” any protesters shouting “Allahu Akbar” , the Arabic phrase that means God is great.

Jenrick, who stands by the comments, was immediately criticised by fellow leadership contender Mel Stride, who said the “suggestion of wholesale criminalisation of the words Allahu Akbar is unwise and insensitive”.

Grave concerns over the party’s direction are now being made publicly by veteran figures on its liberal wing.

Timothy Kirkhope, a former immigration minister and a Tory peer, said he believed his party was now “unrecognisable compared to when it entered into government following the 2010 general election. And many in my party have turned a blind eye to this rightward shift.”

Related: Former justice secretary calls out Tory colleagues over ‘dangerous’ rhetoric

Lord Kirkhope said that a desire to become “Reform-lite” in the wake of the election campaign risked a further lurch. “As a former immigration minister, I know all too well the sensitivities surrounding issues of migration and refugees and the importance of language,” he writes for the Observer . “Some have found it politically expedient to conflate the issues of legal migration and asylum seekers.

“The current situation with levels of social unrest not experienced in this country for a very long time is deeply worrying. The role of divisive rhetoric, including by some from the previous administration, has certainly not helped the situation. ‘Stop the boats’ has been one of the riot chants and that is a most unfortunate result.”

Kirkhope also issued a rallying cry for like-minded Conservatives to speak out. “Any attempts to ‘unite the right’ by morphing or merging the Conservative party with Reform UK could not only undermine social cohesion, but also set my party on a path to an electoral defeat from which it might never recover,” he warns.

His intervention was echoed by Alistair Burt, a former Tory foreign minister. “Tempting though it is, seeking to reduce complex policy to a snappy slogan which appeals to a section of your supporters is not always successful and can backfire,” he said.

“And sometimes such tactics are positively dangerous, such as branding those who seek to use the law for a perfectly proper purpose with which you may disagree as ‘lefty lawyers’ and set in train a chain of events which makes attacking them or the law a target rather than dealing more effectively with serious issues while in government.”

Former home secretary and Tory leadership contender Priti Patel denounced “lefty lawyers” and “do-gooders” in a 2020 speech.

This weekend, she also suggested that there was a “perception” of two-tier policing , which could undermine public confidence.

The idea of two-tier policing – the claim that white working-class people are treated differently from those from ethnic minorities – has been dismissed as a myth by police.The offices of some immigration lawyers were among the plans shared online over the last week by the far right as possible locations for their rallies. The legal profession has been repeatedly targeted by the previous government for its supposed role in standing in the way of Tory attempts to tackle illegal crossings.

Addressing the Tory leadership contenders, Burt called on them not to “pander to divisive options”, but instead to prove their competency, decent leadership and unity to an electorate who would demand those qualities.

Related: The Conservative party has shifted too far to the right. We must fight for the centre ground

Stephen Hammond, another former minister and One Nation figure, who stepped down from parliament at the last election, said there was a duty on politicians to take greater care in the language they chose.

“Politicians are under a particular obligation to consider what they say and how they say it,” he said. “Language is very important and we also have to recognise the historical context of language as well, in terms of how it’s been used previously to incite and inflame particular issues.

“To those members of the Conservative party who think that aping Reform is going to be the way to win a general election, I’d say it’s actually the way to a prolonged period of opposition.”

A Tory source said: “We certainly won’t be making any apologies for trying to deter people from entering the country illegally.”