Boris Johnson: pressure mounts in Tory

party over burqa remarks

Tory peer says Johnson should lose the whip as he continues to defy
order from party chiefs to apologise

 All apologies: the many times Boris Johnson has been told to say sorry

Pippa Crerar and Severin Carrell

Wed 8 Aug 2018 09.28 BSTFirst published on Tue 7 Aug 2018 11.27 BST





Shares
4,030
Play Video
0:34
'It was wrong to use that language': May on Johnson's comments – video

Pressure on Boris Johnson over his controversial remarks about women in

burqas is mounting across the Conservative party a day after the former
foreign secretary was rebuked by Theresa May.

A Conservative peer said Johnson should have the whip withdrawn, while a
cabinet member called on him to retract his words and use language more
carefully, as the row started by the man seen as a possible party leader
continued into a third day.

The prime minister criticised Johnson over his claim that Muslim women in
burqas resemble letterboxes and bank robbers, urging him to apologise after
he defied an order to do so by Tory chiefs.

She said she agreed with the Conservative party chairman, Brandon Lewis,
that Johnson should say sorry for his remarks, which she acknowledged had
caused offence in the Muslim community.

May urged people to be “very careful” about the language they used to discuss
sensitive issues such as women wearing the burqa, but stopped short of saying
Johnson’s comments were Islamophobic or that he should lose the Tory whip,
meaning he would no longer represent the party in parliament.
It’s no coincidence Boris Johnson
has discovered strong views on the
burqa
Nesrine Malik

Read more

Following her intervention, Lord Sheikh, the founder of the Conservative

Muslim Forum, set up to encourage British Muslims to get involved in political
life, called for the party to withdraw the whip from Johnson.

“Take the whip from him. Why not? He’s not a super human being, he’s a
member of the party. The party chairman, the prime minister has the right to
take the whip … that’s the thing I’d like to see,” he told the BBC’s Newsnight.

Further pressure was put on the former foreign secretary by the culture
secretary, Jeremy Wright, who said Johnson should have chosen his language
more carefully.

Advertisement

“When you are discussing a subject such as this, then I think describing it as
people looking like letterboxes isn’t helpful. I think we should all choose our
language with care,” he told the BBC’s Today programme on Wednesday.

Wright said he was “sure on reflection” that Johnson would want to reconsider
the language he had used, but he sidestepped questions over whether the MP
should have the whip removed, saying: “That’s not a decision for me.”

Eric Pickles, a former Tory chairman, told Today: “The very sensible thing
would be for him to apologise.”

The peer and former communities secretary said he did not understand
Johnson’s motives and claimed his comments had closed down the debate on
face veils. “There are tensions now that exist within the community, a degree
of hatred out there that I’ve not witnessed for a good few years,” he said.

Guardian Today: the headlines, the

analysis, the debate - sent direct to
you
Read more

It came as Conservative party chiefs sought to dampen the Islamophobia row

that has re-erupted since Johnson’s remarks in response to
Denmark’s introduction of a ban on burqas in public places.

Sidestepping the question of whether the former foreign secretary was

Islamophobic, May had said: “I have said it’s very clear that anybody who is
talking about this needs to think very carefully about the language that they
use and the impact that language has had on people, and it is clear that the
language that Boris used has offended people.”

May was emphatic that women in the UK ought to be able to choose freely
what they wanted to wear. “What is important is do we believe that people
have the right to practise their religion, should have the right to choose – in
the case of women, and the burqa and the niqab – how they dress,” she said.

“It is absolutely that women should be able to choose how they dress and
shouldn’t be told how to do it by other people. And I believe that all of us when
we talk about these issues should be very careful about the language that we
use.”

May also said: “Some of the terms that Boris used in describing people’s
appearance obviously have offended people and so I agree with Brandon
Lewis.”

On Tuesday night, Johnson – who is believed to be on holiday in Europe –

continued to defy via Twitter Lewis’s order to apologise for his remarks. He is
understood to view the instruction as an attempt to shut down debate on a
difficult issue that should be tackled head-on.

Brandon Lewis
✔@BrandonLewis

I agree with @AlistairBurtUK. I have asked @BorisJohnson to apologise.

BBC Radio 4 Today

✔@BBCr4today
.@AlistairBurtUK says he "would never have made" the comment about burqas which
@BorisJohnson is being criticised for: "I think there is a degree of offence in that... the point he
was trying to make was the government will not enforce any clothing restriction" #r4today
 7:46 PM - Aug 7, 2018

1,012

2,334 people are talking about this

Twitter Ads info and privacy

However, Johnson faced criticism from Tory politicians and Muslim groups
for his comments, which some claimed were designed to pander to rightwing
voters to bolster his future leadership chances. He came under fire recently
for meeting the former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon.

The former Tory chairman Sayeeda Warsi, who has accused Johnson of “dog-
whistle” Islamophobia, told Sky News on Tuesday: “Boris knew what he was
doing when he made those comments, when he chose to use this very specific
language he would know the impact and the effect it would have.”

“I think Boris is making yet another leadership bid and he will do and say
whatever needs to be done to make that as successful as he can … I sincerely
hope that he doesn’t continue to use Muslim women as a convenient political
football to try and increase his poll ratings.”

The Conservative party has been accused of a lack of action on tackling

Islamophobia in its ranks after Lewis said in June that diversity training
would be offered to all members, and local associations would report back on
how complaints were handled.

Before May’s intervention, a number of Tory MPs had criticised Johnson’s

remarks. Alistair Burt, the minister for the Middle East, who worked under
him, described them as offensive and said he would never have said anything
similar.

He told the BBC that Johnson had been defending Muslim women’s right to
wear the religious dress. But he added: “I would never have made such a
comment. I think there is a degree of offence in that, absolutely right.”

Fiyaz Mughal, the founder of Tell Mama, which campaigns against anti-
Muslim violence, said Johnson’s comments amounted to Islamophobia.

“These are the kind of comments we have seen that have been made by
extremist far-right groups and people who have been maliciously attacking
Muslims, so clearly it does fit that bracket,” he said.
The shadow equalities minister, Naz Shah, said: “Boris Johnson’s comments
were not just offensive, they were Islamophobic, but the prime minister is in
denial. An apology is not enough, she needs to order an independent inquiry
into Islamophobia in her party, as requested by the Muslim community, and
take action against him.”

Advertisement

Shazia Awan-Scully, a former Tory parliamentary candidate, accused Johnson

of “pandering to the extreme right”, comparing his comments to Enoch
Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech, and said he should be sacked.

“If you cast your mind back 50 years to when Enoch Powell gave his rivers of
blood speech, he was sacked from the shadow cabinet immediately,” she told
Newsnight.

In his column for the Telegraph on Monday, Johnson said Muslim women
wearing burqas looked like bank robbers, and schools and universities should
be entitled to tell students to remove them.

He said it was “absolutely ridiculous” that wearers should “go around looking
like letterboxes”, and he would expect his constituents to remove them in his
MP’s surgery.

However, Johnson said he did not support a blanket ban on the face veil in the
UK. “You risk turning people into martyrs, and you risk a general crackdown
on any public symbols of religious affiliation, and you may simply make the
problem worse,” he wrote.