Loss of a friend in the cabinet

The resignation from ministerial office of Baroness (Sayeeda) Warsi has opened up cracks inside Government regarding both its attitude to Israel’s actions in Gaza, and more broadly. She told David Cameron that his Government’s failure to condemn Israel was “morally indefensible”, not least because of the high civilian death toll among Palestinians, including a large number of children, and Israel’s repeated attacks on United Nations enclaves in Gaza where civilians had flocked for safety. It was an honourable resignation on a matter of principle and her concerns are widely shared in Parliament and across the country.

Made a Minister of State in the Foreign Office in the 2012 reshuffle, she also undertook the specific role of Minister for Faith and Communities – a brief she first covered in opposition when she was made Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion after being created a life peer in 2007. As the first female Muslim Cabinet minister and a one-time chairman of the Conservative Party, she symbolised Mr Cameron’s rebranding of the Tory image in an effort to woo those who did not see the party as their natural home – as well as a devout Muslim woman, she was Asian, Northern and working class. She had her critics, but she carried out her role with charm and conviction. Of course she was driven partly by self-serving ambition, but what modern politician is not?

Above all, she stood for the view that a good relationship between politics and religion was fundamental to the health of society. As she frequently remarked, unlike that of Tony Blair, the Government to which she belonged “did God”. She meant it owned up to its religious beliefs, rather than pretending they did not matter, and she was adamant about the significance of Britain’s identity as a Christian country. The Churches in Britain have plenty to thank her for. She became the Whitehall friend they could go to.

One of her reasons for resignation was the fear that Britain’s Middle East policy could encourage domestic extremism. She was tireless in working to foster interfaith friendship, dialogue, cooperation and joint action. Her resignation leaves a hole at the heart of Government and it is difficult to see how Mr Cameron can fill it. Her resignation seems like an admission that her faith in the Tory party as the guardian of religiously principled morality was over-optimistic.

Baroness Warsi had excellent relations with the Catholic community, and was proud to have led the largest ever ministerial delegation to the Vatican in 2012, in return for Benedict XVI’s state visit two years earlier. Her views on the separate but intertwined roles of Church and State were not so different from his. Where she fell down was in failing to realise the extent to which Mr Cameron’s “Big Society” project was being undermined by the wholesale withdrawal of grants and subsidies on which non-government welfare agencies, including many that were religiously motivated, had come to depend. She will continue her political career from the backbenches in the House of Lords, and this could be the cause she needs when she speaks there in future.