Conservative candidate accuses 'highly toxic' party of racism, misogyny and bullying amid campaign 'sabotage' claims

1 July 2024, 18:42 | Updated: 1 July 2024, 20:34

A Conservative Party candidate has launched a scathing attack on her own party, accusing it of misogyny, racism and of sabotaging her general election campaign.

Yasmin Al-Atroshi, 29, is standing as the Conservative candidate in Warrington North but has told LBC she has been abandoned by the party, warned she must keep her Kurdish heritage under wraps, and has resorted to campaigning in secret.

Ms Al-Atroshi said: "Unfortunately, I have been abandoned by my own party."

She described the experience as "highly toxic".

"I have been bullied, I have faced misogyny and I have been tried to be controlled coercively by the Warrington Conservative Federation."

Conservative candidate accuses 'highly toxic' party of racism, misogyny and bullying

Al-Atroshi claimed that the Conservatives do not care about the North [Warrington] "at all".

"They only care about the South and Andy Carter, the incumbent MP for Warrington South. It's been very, very unfortunate.

"On my first visit here where they just literally left me in a hotel. They said, well, Yasmin, you're not good enough.

"You're not a good candidate because you've been sent to Warrington North so clearly the party doesn't think very highly of you, despite me explaining that I am a good candidate"

She added since then things have "progressively got worse."

Read more: Jewish Conservative candidate screamed at and called a 'snake' during visit to mosque

"For example, every candidate is entitled to an election address.

"I was not informed by the Federation that I was entitled to an election address, nor did they want to pay for it.

"I had to find out through a colleague, who’s another candidate in another seat. That’s where it dawned on me that the Federation is hiding things."

Her levels of frustration are such, that she has posted a letter on X to people in Warrington North explaining her anger towards her own party.

Read more: Shops boarded up and barricades burned as protests erupt after far-right National Rally surges ahead in French elections

Ms Al-Atroshi also said she had to "fight for funds".

"We had a very kind donation from a member of Warrington North Who donated £2,500 for the Warrington North candidate.

"That was before my nomination. I am now nominated, therefore, that money, is specifically to be used for my campaign.

"The Warrington Federation have held on to that money.

"They did not want to give me that money and we've had to fight for that money.

"It was only when the the donor threatened legal action that I was given partially the money and they still owe me a certain amount of that money, which I need to pay for literature."

Read more: 'New clue' found by TikTok sleuths in Tenerife in search for missing teenager Jay Slater

Ms Al-Atroshi also stated she was specifically told not to mention her Kurdish heritage.

"I thought that was wrong."

"I believe those members in the Federation can be slightly racist.

"I've not felt racism yet within the party, but as I did dig a little deeper, there have been previous complaints of racism within this Federation.

"There's been previous complaints of bullying and there's been previous complaints of misogyny, so I am not the one that's the problem here.

"I don't think it makes me any less British to have a Kurdish heritage and and it's part of who I am and why I'm here today, you know, coming from that background, unfortunately women are classed as second class citizens.

"We're not allowed to go to uni or further education. You're not encouraged to go and work, you're encouraged to get married very early, essentially be the property of a man to have children and I think a lot of ethnic minority backgrounds face these cultural barriers, so I've had to face extreme cultural barriers to be standing here today to be the woman I am today, let alone to put myself forward, to be a member of Parliament.

"I've experienced a lot of abuse, so I'm very pro women's rights.

"And I felt, that it essentially, was a very backward minded attitude that I would have expected, perhaps in the Middle East and not the Western country, and it's all it's those attitudes that I've been battling on a daily basis.

"So, if they thought that they could hire or essentially bring in a woman, you know from London, she's young, it's her first time we'll take her funds, we'll bully her, or put her in her place, but they chose the wrong one."

Asked what the party had said to her, she told LBC: "Help Andy in the South. Give him your resources. Give him your funds. Keep quiet, carry on, and in the future, you know, do as you're told and we might help you out, but unfortunately I'm a woman of integrity.

"I cannot turn a blind eye to injustice, so I'm risking my entire political career by speaking out.

"But I think the public deserve the truth, and so do the residents of Warrington North."

Ms Al-Atroshi told LBC it’s had a damaging effect on her well-being.

She said: "I think it's very hard to put yourself forward into public life. It's even harder being a woman and facing misogyny. I did break down, but I am a very resilient woman and I have very strong emotional intelligence and I thought this is what they want.

"They want me to break down. They don't want me to win. They're scared if I win, God forbid, they get a strong female candidate.

"So I picked myself up. I formed my own team, who got my own donors. I created a separate bank account, with permission of course, and just carried on.

"Since then I've been campaigning every single day I've been working on the campaign every single day, but I've had to do it privately and not put it on social media because the federation didn't want me out there essentially.

"It's shocking. It's honestly mind-blowing. I have not been treated as a parliamentary candidate. I've been not even been treated as a human being.

"I've not been checked on for my mental well-being. I've not even met the chairman to this day. I've left. I've literally been left to my own devices.

Asked if she had been a victim of misogyny, she said, "Absolutely. I do think it's a strong factor in this."

"It's not necessarily the only factor because I know for a fact this has been done to previous candidates both for parliamentary candidates and Council candidates and they haven't all been women, but they do seem to treat women differently in this federation and they have been previous reports of this behaviour so it’s not just me.

"I just happened to be the whistleblower, the one brave enough to be bold to speak out, and I'm speaking out not just for myself, but for all the women out there, and for the women that experienced this and also the female candidates who have been treated very badly by the Conservative Party.

"I've risked my entire political career by standing out, but if I'm not able to stand up for myself and I'm not able to stand up for women who have been treated so badly during this election, how could I possibly stand up for residents as their Member of Parliament?

"I don't think I'm biting the hand that fed me. I've worked very hard to get to where I have. I didn't have any connections when I first started in politics.

"I was in the NHS. I've sat the assessments like everybody else and I've worked extremely hard from the grassroots levels up to be here today.

"I'm whistle blowing for the way candidates, especially female candidates, have been treated this election and will continue to be treated if nobody is brave enough to stand out. And I know I'm not alone in this."

She told LBC the party needed reform from within, adding: "Women need to be treated better within the party."

"We go on about 50-50 Parliament, but if you're not giving women the opportunity to actually stand, we're never going to get there. There are certain key issues now being discussed in Parliament. We know we can't say what a woman is. We can't defend single sex spaces. I am a woman and I find that highly offensive. I want to be there in Parliament to fight on these issues, but I need to be given that opportunity.

"Women need to be stopped being used as political pawns. We also deserve a seat at the table. We are not here just to fill your opposition seats because it will look badly after the election that you didn't have any female candidate."

Asked if it had been difficult for her to engage with local people, she said no, because "every campaigning session that I have had, I've borne the brunt of people not being happy nationally within the party, but they are willing to vote for me."

She said: "They are very happy to see somebody that's brave enough to stand up, to speak out and that they know we'll fight for them. So in that sense, I've had very good campaign sessions. I've just not been given the runway.

She said she was "data dumped with 86 plus emails from residents dated back as far back to perhaps when I was first nominated.

"Those two to three weeks late, of e-mails saying Yasmin, I've got this question if you're my MP, would you do XYZ or Yasmin, I've got my postal vote in front of me. I'm not sure who to vote. I'm on the edge. Can you answer these questions or can you attend this hustings? Or can you make this pledge?

And I just wanted to tell the people of Warrington North."I didn't not reply to you because I'm from London and I don't care. It's quite the opposite I feel deeply, but I wasn't given the opportunity to respond to you because those emails were essentially withheld from me."

They have sabotaged my campaign from the very first day. They just did not expect to have such a strong headed woman that would then create her own team and get her own funds and open a bank account and just go out and do it, which is exactly what I have done.

"But I'm doing as the Prime Minister says. I am being bold and it's I'm speaking out. Essentially I'm whistle blowing, so if I am to be punished for whistle blowing about the treatment of female candidates and women in the party in general. I'm I'm happy to do that. I'm happy to risk my entire career so that somebody else is somebody else doesn't go through what I went through."

A Conservative spokesman said: “All our candidates are supported by the party. With regards to the claims that Warrington north has been forgotten, nothing could be further from the truth.

"We have made strong progress in levelling up our country, backed by £15 billion of government funding.

"In fact Warrington north is set to receive nearly £10million of Government funding for levelling up projects and Warrington has received a record £42m in funding for bus improvements and a new fleet of 105 zero emission buses.

"We want to empower communities to build pride in place, regenerating more towns by giving high streets a new lease of life.

"While Labour have no plan to level up our country and believe decline is inevitable, Conservatives know that towns are the lifeblood of the economy and will take every step to enable them to prosper once again.”

General Election Warrington North constituency | Full list of candidates