Tory party chair orders Boris Johnson to apologise over burqa comments
3 min read
Tory party chair Brandon Lewis today ordered Boris Johnson to apologise for saying Muslim women who wear burqas look like bank robbers and letter boxes.
The former Cabinet minister sparked outrage when he made the comments in a Telegraph column yesterday as he argued against an outright ban on full face veils.
This morning, Tory minister Alistair Burt became the first minister to condemn the comments after Mr Johnson took flack from key Muslim groups and was branded a “pound shop Trump” by a Labour MP.
But he was shortly followed by Mr Lewis, who tweeted that he had asked the ex-foreign secretary to apologise.
It comes after Mr Lewis was accused by a top anti-Islamophobia campaigner of failing to tackle anti-Muslim racism in the party.
The move is also embarrassing for the Prime Minister - who failed to condemn the remarks yesterday.
In comments which sparked a wave of protest, Mr Johnson said it was "absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes".
And he said school teachers or university lecturers would be within their rights to refuse to talk to students who arrived at class "looking like a bank robber".
Foreign Minister Mr Burt - who worked under Mr Johnson when he was foreign secretary before the Uxbridge MP quit over Brexit - told Radio 4’s Today programme his old boss had been defending the right to wear the religious dress.
But he said: "I would never have made such a comment. I think there is a degree of offence in that, absolutely right.”
His remarks echo those of former Tory co-chair Baroness Warsi, who told Channel 4 News: "Muslim women need to stop being a convenient political football to increase poll ratings amongst the Tory faithful."
Meanwhile, Fiyaz Mughal, founder of Tell MAMA, the national anti-Muslim hate monitoring project, said that Mr Johnson's comments "clearly" amounted to Islamophobia.
Mr Mughal also said he met Mr Lewis to discuss tackling Islamophobia earlier this year following a string of allegations about Tory figures but “absolutely nothing happened” afterwards.
But Tory MP Andrew Bridgen defended Mr Johnson over the remarks, and suggested much of the condemnation was rooted in opposition to him eventually becoming the Conservatives' leader.
Asked if the former London mayor should apologise, he told Radio 4: "No I don’t think he should."
He added: “I think if you can get your point across with a little bit of humour it’s appreciated by the public. I think Boris is seen as a clear challenger for the leadership in due course and it’s interesting the characters, Alistair Burt – love him to bits – and the party chairman, and we all know what side they’re batting on.”
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