What Johnson wants, Ford says, is for people to be talking about him. “Since his resignation, very little attention has been paid to Boris Johnson, which is a situation unfamiliar to him in recent years,” says Robert Ford, a professor of political science at the University of Manchester. “If a female student turned up at school or at a university lecture looking like a bank robber then…I should feel fully entitled…to ask her to remove it so that I could talk to her properly.” Why did he say it?Īlthough Johnson has a long history of making controversial statements, including comments that many consider racist or Islamophobic, this is his first time back in the news since resigning the position of foreign secretary. “It is absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letterboxes,” Johnson wrote. In his weekly column for The Daily Telegraph newspaper, a role he reprised after resigning his government post, Johnson described how following a recent visit to Denmark he was saddened by the country’s “heavy-handed” decision to ban the burqa.Ĭriticisms focused on his characterization of the veil, however. A Conservative member of the U.K.’s upper house called on Johnson to be expelled from the party, while another senior lawmaker said he would quit if Johnson ever became party leader. The Muslim Council of Britain, a leading Muslim umbrella body, called Johnson’s remarks “unacceptable” and accused the former foreign secretary, who resigned in July, of pandering to the far-right. In a newspaper column discussing Denmark’s recent veil ban, Johnson likened women who wear the burqa to “letter boxes” and “bank robbers,” as well as characterizing the clothing as “odd” and “ridiculous.”ĭespite calls for an apology from senior figures including the prime minister Theresa May, Johnson has so far refused to express remorse. Former British foreign secretary Boris Johnson has been accused of Islamophobia after comments he made on Monday about the burqa, the full-face veil worn by some Muslim women.
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