The first Muslim woman Cabinet Minister shares her concern about rising Islamophobia with Lorna Donlon

Sayeeda Warsi is bustling, and in demand. She has already spent several hours in TV and radio studios, and later this morning there is a variety of family and work matters to arrange and pin down, including a meeting with her daughter in London. Her new book, The Enemy Within: A Tale of Muslim Britain, is launched this week, and there is another significant deadline too: she is looking forward to becoming a grandmother for the first time.

She is warm and friendly, with the political polish of someone who is used to being in the public eye. And she multitasks: chatting with canteen staff as we order drinks, monitoring her messages while checking her phone for details of our meeting room.

Not for the first time in her career, Baroness Warsi is challenging the establishment. She describes The Enemy Within as a “normal tale” of Muslim Britain; but it is ruffling feathers as it excoriates key parts of the Govern- ment’s strategy for promoting social cohesion.

After 10 years on the political front line as a leading and sometimes controversial figure in the Conservative Party, she is setting the record straight. Her book is less standard political memoir and more analysis of the place of Muslim communities within the United Kingdom; a story of identity and belonging. She asks if you can “spot” a terrorist or a violent jihadi, arguing that there are multiple factors and patterns of behaviour to consider. It is wrong, she insists, for the Government and policy makers to focus on Islamist ideology alone. Even though she is no longer in government, her criticism of one of the underlying assumptions of its anti-terrorism policy will provoke a strong reaction.