UK Politician Boris Johnson Draws Ire over Burka ‘Bank Robber’ Remark
Johnson likens burka-clad women to “letter-boxes” and “bank robbers.”
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.
Britain is sick to death of this politically correct Prime Minister. @BorisJohnson’s comments make him more likely to be Tory leader. pic.twitter.com/3lHs8213qJ
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) August 7, 2018
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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“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.”
‘Liberal values’ are too important to be left in the hands of ‘liberal’ arbiters. These arbiters will turn them into suicide pacts.
Nigel Farage is correct.
It always amazes me just how quickly many people are to surrender on things like this. YET those very same people will NEVER EVER defend the rights of Christians to wear crosses and instead will use that as an excuse to throw those who dare question the religion of the sacred cow in prison.
Don’t forget also how the Brit Tory gov’t fails to protect Jews who wear kippah’s in public from attacks by the same Islamist’s that they say they don’t want to offend.
That’s because they do Evil.
And never forget, that Evil is as common as dirt.
That is just not true. Those same people absolutely do stand up for the same right to wear crosses — and kippahs and wigs.
As you don’t know which specific people were being referred to, it isn’t possible for you to make a factual statement about “those very same people”. Mailman’s broad characterization does not lend itself to validation by an equally broad generalization. Neither statement is provably factual.
Cite even one person who defends the right of Moslems to wear hijab (let alone burqas and niqabs) but not that of Christians to wear crosses or of Jews to wear kippot or wigs.
Secondly is the hippocrasy on display from the liberal left.
Labour, here in the UK, is chock full of Jew race haters. Every time Corbyn and his lot open their mouths some Jew hatred spews forth YET the media couldn’t give a flying rats fuck about Jew race hatred and the very real hatred their comments inflame.
Yet here Im supposed to care about what Boris said when comparing the burka to a fucking mail box?
Give me a fucking break!
There is a logic — a grand unifying theory, if you will, to this hypocrisy. The Brits are unified with the Muslims in their midst in their genocidal hatred of Jews. Once you realize that, along with the fact that the Muslims are the means (muscle) by which they hope to drive Jews out of Britain, the double standard makes sense.
the brits are closely related to the germans.
offend a Jew and you get a reward.
offend a Muslim and you get blown up.
no great philosophy involved.
“closely”? Is there light between them?
The Queen’s last name is Windsor, but that’s because only 100 years ago the King changed it from Tudor, because Tudor was too Germanic sounding. The “Saxon” in “Anglo-Saxon” is from Saxony, a German region. Britain has benefitted, as the United States has, from hybrid vigor. Don’t forget the Normans were French before they crossed the Channel.
1. There hasn’t been a Tudor king since Elizabeth I.
2. Tudor doesn’t sound anything like German. Henry Tudor was a Welshman.
3. George V changed his royal house name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, which was Prince Albert’s name.
4. The Saxon invasion was 1500 years ago; if that make the English German then it must make Americans German too.
Oh and the Normans weren’t French, they were Frenchified vikings.
I’m with Boris. The Muslim have gotten too much latitude with their odd rules. And when one goes on a killing spree, they are defended. Political correctness = Death of Britain. Death of Europe. Close death US.
while Texans still abide, the US still has hope –
it is a close call, though.
Just in case there was still any doubt, this has established that May is no conservative.
KKKrazy May is a traitor to her nation!
Now if Boris and Nigel will tackle the real underlying issue which is islam itself and its overarching supremacist, oppressive ideology and creeping sharia.
Islam as well as Post Modern neo-Marxism.
The antifa wearing American burkas are an even worse problem. The former is cultural while the second is actual criminality.
nobody is standing up to the masked robbers of liberty.
the courts give them ‘community service’ when caught.
what they should receive as ‘community service’ is wiping the butts of Alzheimer sufferers!
How do you even know the person under the burqa is a Moslem woman and not an antifa thug, or just a common or garden criminal?
Of course we can’t know; on the other hand, wearing a burka certainly does restore a reasonable expectation of privacy.
That standard, ‘the reasonable expectation of privacy’, seems to be employed in a fashion that implies that one cannot have privacy in public spaces regardless of disguise.
I’ve come to the conclusion that Britain is suffering from an advanced case of the same thing that ails us: phony elitists running the opposition party.
Teresa May is the worst “conservative” I’ve ever seen. But the Tory men around her are so scared of women that they can’t bring themselves to oust her.
Like in the case of the U.S., nothing useful will happen until the parasites in the system are kicked out. The conservatives need to get their house in order.
He didn’t compare them to letterboxes or to bank robbers, he said they look like them. Well, they do. Why is it wrong to point this out?
What Johnson didn’t point out but perhaps should have is that the resemblance to a bank robber is not just coincidental, but is a real security concern. Bank robbers dress like that to hide their identity — sometimes exactly like that. Daniel Pipes has collected an astonishingly long list of crimes committed by people wearing burqas and niqabs, just in Philadelphia alone. Since there’s nothing special about Philadelphia, it should be expected that a similar list could be compiled for any city, depending on its size. That is a strong reason to ban burqas and niqabs in banks and any other place where the need for security measures is high enough to justify hiring guards.
And sure, a burqa may be compared to a crucifix, but not a little one on a necklace; the proper comparison is to one of those huge wooden ones that are carried on the back in religious processions. If someone were to carry one of those around with him wherever he went, he would be regarded as a fanatic.
Now hijab is a different matter. It is a pure expression of religious belief, it poses no threat to anybody, there are no good arguments for banning it, and doing so would set a dangerous and ugly precedent. When someone calls for banning burqas he is being sensible; when he extends it to hijab (or the “burqini”)_ then we know he’s motivated not by security but by bigotry.
Philadelphia is special, there are a lot of what appear to be American blacks openly wearing burkas there. You would be hard-pressed to duplicate that outside of Somali communities in Minnesota.
Not exactly bank robbers, nope, but close!
NEVER apologize for the truth. The picture looks like a Hefty Trash bag commercial.
When I lived in Egypt, I knew Muslim women who would cross the street to avoid walking near a woman wearing the black abaya, hijab, and niqab. They said they couldn’t tell who was under there. The niqab is a sign of the presence of radical Islamism. It is culturally inappropriate for women or men to walk around in Western societies with their faces hidden. The wearing of a head covering or wig or conservative clothing is not the same as hiding the face.
Boris is right. No apology!