Sayeeda Warsi, Baroness Warsi

Sayeeda Hussain Warsi, Baroness Warsi, (born 28 March 1971) is a British lawyer, politician, and member of the House of Lords who served as co-chairwoman of the Conservative Party from 2010 to 2012.

After qualifying as a solicitor in 1996, she worked for the Conservative MP for Dewsbury, John Whitfield, at Whitfield Hallam Goodall Solicitors, and then set up a practice in Dewsbury.

In 2004, she left the CPS to stand, unsuccessfully, for election to the House of Commons.

Warsi was the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Dewsbury at the 2005 general election, having been added to the Conservative Party A-List for priority candidates, and thereby becoming the first Muslim woman to be selected by the Conservatives.

She placed second with Labour retaining the seat.

Following the election, she served as a Special Adviser to Michael Howard for Community Relations and was appointed by David Cameron as Vice Chair of the Conservative Party with specific responsibility for cities.

The gay rights organisation Stonewall, along with several Labour politicians, questioned her suitability for a high-profile Conservative Party role, owing to leaflets issued during her 2005 election campaign that featured views they said were homophobic.

After being raised to the peerage in 2007, Warsi served as Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion and Social Action.

She became the first Muslim to serve as a Cabinet Minister.

Warsi is the second of five daughters born in Dewsbury, West Riding of Yorkshire, to Pakistani immigrants from Bewal, Gujar Khan.

Her father is owner of a bed manufacturing company, who started life as a mill worker and a bus driver.

Warsi has said that her father's success led her to adopting Conservative principles.

Warsi was educated at Birkdale High School, Dewsbury College (now Kirklees College), and the University of Leeds.

She attended the College of Law, York (now the University of Law), and completed her professional legal training thereafter with both the Crown Prosecution Service and the Home Office Immigration Department.

On 2 July 2007, Warsi was appointed Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion.

To enable her to fulfil this post, she was created a life peer as Baroness Warsi, of Dewsbury in the County of West Yorkshire, on 11 October 2007 and was introduced in the House of Lords on 15 October 2007.

On joining the House of Lords, she became its youngest member.

On 1 December 2007, Warsi travelled to Khartoum with the Labour peer Lord Ahmed to mediate in the Sudanese teddy bear blasphemy case.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown commended both peers for their efforts regarding the issue.

On a 2009 episode of Question Time, Warsi was supportive of same-sex civil partnerships Speaking in December 2013 at a BNP Paribas event in support for the Kaleidoscope Trust, she apologised for her leaflets and said the Conservative Party had been "on the wrong side of history" on gay rights.

Following a confrontation in November 2009 by a group of protestors in Luton accusing her of not being a proper Muslim, a man was jailed for six weeks for a public order offence of throwing an egg at Warsi.

Warsi argued against following the example of France by banning Muslim women from wearing the veil, as this was "not the British way", although she commented that those who choose to wear garments such as the full-face veil must accept that there are some situations in which it is not appropriate.

In 2009, she was named as "Britain's most powerful Muslim woman" by an Equality and Human Rights Commission panel and in 2010 as one of the world's "500 most influential Muslims" by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre, a Middle East think tank.

She served in the Cameron–Clegg coalition, first as the Minister without portfolio between 2010 and 2012, then as the Minister of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (styled as "Senior Minister of State") and as the Minister of State for Faith and Communities, until her resignation citing her disagreement with the Government's policy relating to the Israel–Gaza conflict in August 2014.

Warsi grew up in a family of Pakistani Muslim immigrants living in West Yorkshire.

She became a solicitor with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

On 12 May 2010, David Cameron appointed Warsi as Minister without Portfolio in Cabinet, when she succeeded Eric Pickles as Chairman of the Conservative Party.

This appointment made Warsi the first Muslim woman to serve in the Cabinet.

Warsi was sworn into the Privy Council the next day.

Following David Cameron's first Cabinet reshuffle in September 2012, Warsi was appointed to the restyled post of "Senior Minister of State" in the Foreign Office and Minister for Faith and Communities in the Department of Communities and Local Government (a role created specifically for her in a ministry she had shadowed in Opposition).

Warsi was replaced as Conservative Party chairman by Grant Shapps.

At the Foreign Office she was responsible for country-specific policies concerning Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh along with international organisations and leading FCO business in the House of Lords

At the Department for Communities and Local Government Lady Warsi worked with religious and community leaders to promote faith, religious tolerance and stronger communities within the UK.

Warsi established and co-chaired HM Government's first Ministerial Task Force on Islamic Finance.

At the World Islamic Economic Forum, the UK Government announced that Warsi would chair a new Global Islamic Finance and Investment Group.

In a public speech at Washington D.C. in 2013, Warsi highlighted persecution of Christians in parts of the world.

In the April 2016 issue of Dabiq Magazine, The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant declared her a murtadd (or apostate) for being among a group of "overt crusaders" who "directly involve themselves in politics and enforcing the laws of kufr".

On 20 June 2016, three days before the referendum on membership of the European Union, Warsi said that she could no longer support the Leave campaign because of what she claimed was its xenophobia, and would vote to remain within the EU.

A spokesman for Vote Leave said that they were not aware that Warsi had ever been a supporter.

In May 2018, Warsi stated that the Prime Minister, Theresa May should publicly acknowledge that Islamophobia was a problem in the Conservative Party and that the party was in denial about the problem."