TORY leadership hopeful Kemi Badenoch has been branded an “Islamophobe” and a “threat to democracy” after her attack on progressive independent MPs.

The five MPs, four of them Muslims elected for the first time in the July general election, denounced her for “an outrageous slur.”

The former business secretary, now bidding for the votes of very right-wing Tory party members, said that she found the election of the MPs – who also include non-Muslim Jeremy Corbyn – more worrying than the rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform party.