The man bringing full-blown extremism back to the Tory party

Mostly, it feels good. Reading Nick Timothy’s deranged screed against Muslims on Twitter was appalling – in his original post he’d argued that, though “too many are too polite to say this… mass ritual prayer in public places is an act of domination”. The shadow minister and former adviser to Theresa May had seen pictures of Muslims praying in Trafalgar Square, at an event organised by Sadiq Khan and, somehow, they’d left him frothing at the mouth.

“Perform these rituals in mosques if you wish. But they are not welcome in our public places and shared institutions,” he continued. Gracefully, he added that he wasn’t “suggesting everybody at Trafalgar Square last night [was] an Islamist”. Still, “the domination of public places is straight from the Islamist playbook. It was an act of domination and therefore division. It shouldn’t happen again.”

So, yes: appalling, though not entirely surprising. Timothy was working for May when the “Go Home or Face Arrest” vans were sent out 13 years ago. His trajectory after that made it clear that he’d not exactly move leftwards at any point since those days. It’s also fair to say that the Conservative party hasn’t necessarily covered itself in glory in that time.

Instead, the good news came from what followed. For a short while after Timothy made his comments, it looked like the usual suspects would try and fight back – Baroness Warsi, Sadiq Khan, some relatively minor figures on the left – but everyone else would stay silent. That isn’t what happened.

On Wednesday, Keir Starmer used Prime Minister’s Questions to attack Kemi Badenoch on the behaviour of her frontbencher. “He said last night that Muslims praying in public, including the mayor of London practising his faith, are not welcome,” he told her at the despatch box.

“If he were in my team he would be gone. She should denounce his comments and she should sack him.” Perhaps most importantly, he also added that the Conservative Party “has a problem with Muslims” – shifting the blame from one individual to the entire opposition.

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It didn’t end there. Following the prime minister’s lead, cabinet minister David Lammy told Timothy to “stop fanning the flames of division”, party chair Anna Turley wrote to Badenoch to call his comments “utterly appalling”, and minister Chris Bryant said the shadow minister should “apologise and he should be sacked”.

Over on social media, education secretary Bridget Phillipson posted that “Christians, Jews, Sikhs and Hindus have all prayed in Trafalgar Square. Nick Timothy singled out Muslims, then had the brass neck today to sit on the front bench. He should be sacked,” and warned that, “the Tories are following Reform into the gutter”.

Naturally, Nick Timothy has only doubled down since then, posting on X that “Labour are only demonstrating that they cannot see right from wrong. They will not stand up for our way of life. But we will” – less of a dogwhistle and more of a foghorn – and writing a column for the Telegraph which frankly doesn’t need repeating here. Badenoch has also decided to stand by her man, which is both incomprehensible yet was always utterly predictable.

Still: it feels good. It’s nice to be able to write about the once-traditional right now adopting the words and viewpoints of extremists and populists, and be able to say that the left – the people in power – are actually fighting back.

For a long time, they didn’t, or wouldn’t. Labour’s reaction to the race riots was meek and shameful, and even this year, a letter released in Starmer’s name about the results of the Gordon and Denton by-election blamed the Green’s win on “sectarianism”. Whatever has changed has only changed recently. It may be the departure of Morgan McSweeney, or one of the other people who left after him; it may be that, finally, No10 is freeing itself of the ghouls of Blue Labour.

This is why the “mostly” must stand, at least for now. Watching a progressive party defend a blameless minority getting attacked on purely bigoted grounds should feel normal, and not like an unusual but welcome exception. Starmer’s Labour has, since winning the election, found countless ways in which to disappoint the people who’d believed in his project while he was still in opposition.

The events of the past few days have been encouraging, but left-wing voters have been fooled before. Let’s applaud this change of heart but make sure it’ll hold before we celebrate.