How news is made, part 634: a piece in the Guardian last week claimed there was “” among black voters after Kemi Badenoch rejected calls for Britain to pay slavery reparations. Alas, “black voters” here turns out to mean one man: David Weaver, head of an activist group, Operation Black Vote, who probably didn’t ask the other 2.5 million black voters what they thought before pronouncing on their behalf. (Isn’t that a bit… colonialist, David?)

Badenoch is, of course, completely right.

But there is an awkward qualification to make. Under her leadership, at least one senior Tory is actively enabling the reparations movement, in their party capacity.

A key body campaigning for today’s Brits to pay money we don’t have, to people we didn’t enslave, for an evil perpetrated by nations and rulers across the world and throughout history, including today (but by nobody in this country or anywhere under its control for the last 190 years) is the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Afrikan Reparations. In a petition presented to the House earlier this year, the APPG demanded a “” to propose “.”

The key phrase here is “all-party.”

Parliament’s rules are strict. This group can only exist, and can have the credibility which comes from being cross-party, if a parliamentarian from the main opposition party, the Conservative Party, agrees to serve as an officer.

The useful idiot in this case is Baroness Sandip Verma, a Tory peer since 2006 and a junior minister under David Cameron. Spelling Africa with a “k” doesn’t mean Verma and all her fellow officers are Germans, incidentally.  It’s apparently a “symbolic rejection of colonial norms,” because you can never have enough symbolism, can you?

Verma’s main recent connection to Africa, sorry Afrika, appears to be getting a reported £88 million solar panel contract, or should that be kontrakt, for her family firm from the government of Uganda. As the Guardian reported: “The deals have surprised other suppliers in the African solar power market. Verma and her son Rikki are the firm’s only directors and have no previous experience in the industry.” (Yes, I know it’s the Guardian again, but this one appears to involve some actual investigative reporting.)

Verma is not the only Tory who lends crucial legitimacy in this way to rotten causes, profoundly opposed by the Conservative Party, giving them the plausibility of “cross-party” endorsement and the media oxygen of a Westminster platform. Some hacks and many, many on social media even confuse APPGs with official bodies of Parliament, such as select committees.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims produced the notorious report demanding a state-endorsed definition of “Islamophobia” which would, in the group’s own words, set “appropriate limits to free speech” when talking about Muslims, and create “tests… for ascertaining whether contentious speech is indeed reasonable criticism or Islamophobia masquerading as ‘legitimate criticism.’” The activity prevented by the definition should, says the group, extend “” anything that can currently “.”

The Rotherham grooming scandal was one of a number of true things that would be deemed “Islamophobic” under this definition.

This APPG has been a key part of the pressure campaign for an official, government-sponsored Islamophobia definition – another idea vehemently, and rightly, opposed by Badenoch and most Tories. Labour has bowed to that pressure, with a definition that gives the APPG much, though not all, of what it asked for and a platform on which to build more. This APPG, too, is only able to exist because one Tory parliamentarian – Baroness Trish Morris – serves as its vice-chair.

I know Badenoch’s office has attempted to discourage Tories from getting involved with this body, but clearly with incomplete success. Tougher action now needs to be taken against Tories who work against the party, its leadership and its interests in this way. Verma, Morris and any others supporting APPGs for indefensible causes should be asked to resign from them. If not, the whip should be withdrawn, which would have the same effect.