Government has become 'suspicious of Muslims',

• Former Foreign Office minister criticised policy of non-engagement 
• Slammed failure to develop friendship with the three-million Muslims in UK
• Storm of protest over anti-terror letter to mosques was unsurprising

The Government increasingly views Muslim organisations and individuals with 'suspicion', a former Conservative party chairman has said.

Baroness Warsi, who quit as a Foreign Office minister last August, criticised what she called a policy of non-engagement with the Muslim community.

The first Muslim member of the Cabinet hit out at the failure to develop a friendship with the three-million strong Muslim community in Britain. 

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Baroness Warsi said there had been a failure to tackle anti-Muslim sentiment

Writing in The Observer, she said: 'The obsessive checking of the backgrounds of those on guest lists to Eid events, the refusal to attend events where there may 'possibly' or 'potentially' be a speaker whose views we find unsavoury, even when attendance would provide the perfect opportunity to challenge those views, has created a unique approach within government over the last four years. 

'This is to view ever-increasing numbers of Muslim organisations or individual activists with suspicion and dangerously narrow engagement to a dozen people from a community of more than three million.' 

Baroness Warsi warned a letter sent by Communities Secretary Eric Pickles urging Muslim leaders to do more to root out extremism had backfired. 

The letter was condemned as 'patronising and factually incorrect' by some Muslims, with many saying it gave the idea th at Muslims and Islam are inherently apart from British society.

While largely supportive of the intentions behind the letter from Communities Secretary Eric Pickles, whom she describes as a friend, Lady Warsi said the storm of criticism it provoked from some sections of the Muslim community was unsurprising.

She said there had been almost six years of non-engagement, both by the previous Labour Government and now the coalition.

'The reaction to the Pickles letter underlines what I consistently argued for in government - that it was important for us to engage with a broad range of groups and individuals who purported to speak for the British Muslim community, while accepting that, inevitably, some didn't do it very well,' said Lady Warsi.

She said there had been a failure to tackle anti-Muslim sentiment, and described the current climate within the Muslim community as one of concern, worry and fear.

'So it's no surprise there is a trust deficit, a questioning of motive to a letter sent with the best of intentions. For too many, the hand of friendship felt like an admonitory finger that was once again pointing at Britain's Muslims,' she said.

Lady Warsi also said it was sad that her calls for a meeting, similar to the annual one the Prime Minister has with the Jewish Leadership Council, with members of other major faith communities had not been answered.

Sadiq Khan, Labour's shadow justice secretary, said: 'When the most senior Tory Muslim is so scathing about her own party, we should all sit up and listen.

 These comments confirm that David Cameron's Conservatives are out-of-touch and have nothing to offer British Muslims. Only Labour truly represents all of Britain's communities.' 

Finally a government waking up