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Kemi Badenoch has refused to restore the whip to Sayeeda Warsi, despite her being cleared of wrongdoing over a tweet calling Rishi Sunak a coconut.
The former party chair resigned the Tory whip in the Lords in September when it emerged she was being investigated over the tweet.
The Independent has now learned that the disciplinary panel cleared Baroness Warsi of being “divisive” and “bringing the party into disrepute”. But despite this, the Tory chief whip has written to the peer, who was UK’s first Muslim cabinet member, saying she is not welcome back in the party.
Baroness Warsi said she was being targeted for warning of rising levels of Islamophobia in the party.
It comes amid the row over calls for an inquiry into grooming gangs that has seen the Tories accused of political opportunism.
On Tuesday Ms Badenoch stood by her shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick as he railed against Muslims and “alien cultures importing medieval attitudes” in relation to the groom gang scandal with many demanding he was sacked.
In a letter from Baroness Williams, seen by The Independent, Baroness Warsi was told: “While your membership of the Conservative Party is unaffected, restoring the party Whip is a different matter.
“It is a privilege, not a right and following careful consideration, I cannot be confident that you have any intention of stopping your public denigration of our Party and its successive leaders. This behaviour is not acceptable and I will not allow it from Conservative peers.”
It is understood that the Tory leadership objects to comments Baroness Warsi has made previously on the party being Islamophobic and “sliding into far right extremism”.
However, Baroness Warsi has insisted she has not asked to have the whip restored, and accused the Tories of “game playing”.
In a statement, Baroness Warsi told The Independent the party was attempting to “demonise” her for challenging the party’s “rising levels of extremism, racism and Islamophobia”.
The move appears to be an attempt to shore up the party on the right with concerns over voters and members defecting to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. Three former MPs, a major donor and the founder of ConHome have all been high profile rightwing defections.
Baroness Warsi’s appointment as party chair in 2010 by David Cameron had been a sign of modernisation in the Conservatives but since then she has been pushed back to the fringe as the Tories embraced Brexit and hardline rhetoric on immigration.
The peer had suggested she might vote for Ms Badenoch in the leadership election before changing her mind.
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