Despite pressure from Prime Minister Theresa May and the UK Conservative Party, Britain’s former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has refused to apologise for his critical remarks about women in burkas, the full-body Islamic veil. The senior Conservative politician stirred a controversy this week after likening burka-clad women to “letter-boxes” and “bank robbers”.
Johnson “won’t be apologizing”, reported the BBC citing a source close to the former Foreign Secretary. “We have to call it out. If we fail to speak up for liberal values then we are simply yielding ground to reactionaries and extremists,” he reportedly added.
Writing for the Sunday’s edition of the UK newspaper Daily Telegraph, he said that it was “absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letterboxes” and expressed disapproval over any female student appearing at a British school or university fully veiled “looking like a bank robber.” He was commenting on the recently passed Danish law that bans full-face veils in public. Austria, Belgium, and France have already introduced similar bans in recent years.
May concurred with other Conservative politicians that “Johnson should say sorry for his remarks” for causing “offence in the Muslim community,” UK newspaper The Guardian reported.
Johnson now faces an investigation “into breaches of the Conservative Party code of conduct,” a move that could lead to his expulsion from the party. The Guardian reported the details of the inquiry:
The former foreign secretary Boris Johnson is to a face a disciplinary investigation following a string of complaints that his comments about the burqa breached the Conservative party’s code of conduct.The investigation represents the first step in any disciplinary process, which could ultimately lead to Johnson being expelled or suspended from the party, a verdict that would almost certainly have to be signed off by Theresa May.Party sources said dozens of complaints about the column had been received after it was published on Monday and it was important they were properly examined. In the article for the Daily Telegraph, Johnson compared women in burka to “letterboxes” and “bank robbers”.
Labour Party MP David Lammy said Johnson was “fanning the flames of Islamophobia” while is former co-chair of the Conservative Party Sayeeda Warsi accused him of “dog-whistle” Islamophobia.
Burkas are like wearing a crucifix, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives Ruth Davidson said. Wearing burka and crosses “is the same argument but in a different faith” and should have the same “parameters”, she said.
Johnson, the former mayor of London, had resigned as Foreign Secretary last month over PM May’s handling of the Brexit negotiations with the European Union. He accused the Prime Minister of killing “the Brexit dream” with her plan to keep British businesses subjected to the EU regulations and courts after the country leaves the bloc.
Johnson received support from the leading Brexit campaigner and former UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, who predicted that the former Foreign Secretary was now even more likely to replace May as the leader of the Conservative Party, claiming remarks critical of burka were more in sync with the views of the British public than prevailing political correctness.
“Britain is sick to death of this politically correct Prime Minister. @BorisJohnson’s comments make him more likely to be Tory leader.
Unlike Johnson, the rest of the European political class and the mainstream media have been more than accommodating of the growing practice Muslim face veils.
In March, the UK edition of Vogue magazine made history by featuring a hijab-clad model on the cover for the first time in the fashion weekly’s 102-year history. Earlier, Austrian President Alexander van der Bellen had called on “every woman to wear a headscarf” in order to fight “Islamophobia.” In the US too, the Islamic hijab has turned into a ‘symbol of resistance’ for the Left following President Trump’s election. At the anti-Trump Women’s March in January 2017 many self-proclaimed feminists donned the Sharia-compliant hijabs made of the American flag — besides the trademark pink pussy hats.
While the courageous women in Iran risk their lives by burning their burkas and headscarves in defiance of the hijab laws, the politically correct Western elites are bending over backwards to accommodate regressive Islamist norms and practices within their societies.
[Cover image via YouTube]
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