A Conservative MP has attacked her own party’s decision to cancel a Muslim charities event at the last minute, and has demanded an explanation – but the party itself has still offered no reason, three days after the decision was taken.

Yesterday Acevo, the infrastructure body for charity leaders, accused the Conservative Party of a “direct attack on free speech” after an event it had organised, together with the Muslim Charities Forum, was cancelled without notice.

The event has now been rescheduled for a venue outside the conference secure zone, and is going ahead this afternoon.

Margot James, MP for Stourbridge, told a conference breakfast meeting organised by Acevo that she was “horrified” to hear of the cancellation of the Muslim charities event and she would be asking why.

The cancellation of the event was first reported in the Daily Telegraph, in an article which questioned whether some speakers had links to terrorist organisations. The Telegraph is likely to face libel action over the article.

Previous accusations about the same speakers were made three years ago in the Jewish Chronicle, and were the subject of a full retraction and apology.

Despite cancelling the event, the Conservative Party allowed all the speakers to attend the conference. The speakers have been subject to extensive police security checks and conducted a similar event without difficulty at the Labour Party Conference last week.

A spokesman for Acevo confirmed that after reading the Telegraph article he made repeated calls to the Conservative head office, but it took almost a day from the publication of the article for the party to confirm the event would not go ahead. He said he has still received no official explanation as to why it had been cancelled.

“I started calling first thing in the morning,” he said. “At 15.23 a conference organiser responded to me to confirm the event had been cancelled.

“She refused to give any explanation and referred me to a standard clause in our contract which said the party has the right to cancel any event at any time.”

He said he had tried since to obtain more information from the party press office but the Conservatives have refused to respond.

Civil Society News has also repeatedly requested an explanation of why the event was cancelled but the party has so far made no comment.