Celebrating their launch as an affiliated body of the Conservative Party, British Tamil Conservatives held a drinks reception at the Tory Party Conference 2012 in Birmingham on Tuesday.

The BTC has become the first ethnic specific group to be affiliated to the Conservative Party in the UK.

Celebrating this success along side the BTC were a number of notable members of the Party including: the Party Chairman Grant Shapps, Cabinet Minister Theresa Villiers and the Vice President of the National Conservative Convention, Steve Bell, as well as many other MPs and MEPs.

Highlighting the arduous road taken by the BTC to secure the affiliation, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Theresa Villiers, expressed her congratulations. Speaking of how disturbing she found the Channel 4 documentary Sri Lanka's Killing Fields, Villiers asserted that a credible, thorough, independent investigation was needed.

Lee Scott and Grant Shapps (pictured centre left and right)

Addressing the event, BTC Patron and Chairman of the All Party Partliamentary Group for Tamils, Lee Scott (MP for Ilford North), congratulated the BTC and acknowledged that justice for Tamils was the "central concern" for British Tamils and organisations such as the BTC, as well as others such as the Global Tamil Forum and Tamil community leaders.

Dr Arjuna Sivananthan, the Vice Chairman of BTC and Executive member of Conservative Way Forward (CWF) said, 

"Our objectives are twofold: take the Party's message to the Tamil community ensure we, the Conservatives, have an outright majority in the next parliament, and continue our advocacy work of bringing the plight of Tamils to Party members and the Conservative Members of Parliament. We will not stop until these two objectives are accomplished."

The former defence secretary, Liam Fox, was also in attendance. Fox said he was "very worried about the state of affairs in Sri Lanka, and that if the Government of Sri Lanka were not prepared to at least make the little changes already in the constitution the situation would worsen."

See here for full press release by BTC.

Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Theresa Villiers

Dr Arjuna Sivananthan, the Vice Chairman of BTC and Executive member of Conservative Way Forward (CWF)

BTC Patron and Chairman of the All Party Partliamentary Group for Tamils, Lee Scott (MP for Ilford North),