A lawyer, a businesswoman, a campaigner and a cabinet minister, Sayeeda Warsi has had many roles, but she is best known for being the first Muslim to serve in a British cabinet.
In August 2014 she resigned from Government citing the Government’s “morally indefensible” policy on Gaza.
In 2007 she was elevated to the House of Lords aged 36, making her the youngest peer in Parliament. Later that year she traveled to Sudan and famously helped to secure the release of the British teacher Gillian Gibbons who was on trial for blasphemy.
From 2007 to 2010 she served in the Shadow Cabinet as Minister for Community Cohesion and Social Action.
In 2010 she was appointed by Prime Minister David Cameron as Minister without Portfolio and Chairman of the Conservative Party
In Government she led the largest ministerial delegation to the Vatican, famously declared that Islamophobia had “passed the dinner table test” and established the Remembering Srebrenica programme.
Sayeeda is Chair of the Baroness Warsi Foundation and a Trustee of the Savayra Foundation.
Sayeeda is Pro Vice Chancellor at the University of Bolton, an Advisor to Georgetown University Washington DC and Visiting Professor at St Marys – the oldest Catholic university in the UK.
Baroness Warsi has consistently been voted one of the 500 Most Influential Muslims in the world.
Baroness Warsi’s first book, The Enemy Within: A Tale of Muslim Britain has been billed as “a vital book at a critical time…a seminal text on British Muslims”
Photo Credit: Tony Johnson