One of the Conservative party’s most high-profile Muslims has accused Boris Johnson of making “hate crime more likely” with an indefensible, “dog-whistle” reference to fully veiled Muslim women.
Sayeeda Warsi, writing in the Guardian on Wednesday, said the former foreign secretary had used rightwing, “alt-right” language in criticising the appearance of the burqa, which contributes to a view that “Muslim women are fair game”.
“As a feminist, what really disgusts me in this whole episode is that Muslim women are simply political fodder, their lives a convenient battleground on which to stake out a leadership bid,” Lady Warsi wrote.
Boris Johnson’s contempt for Muslim women is part of a dangerous pattern | Sayeeda Warsi Read more
“Well, this approach is not just offensive, it’s dangerous. Johnson’s words have once again validated the view of those that ‘other’ Muslims. They send out a message that Muslim women are fair game.
“What starts as useful targets for ‘colourful political language’ and the odd bit of toxic campaigning ends up in attacks on our streets.”
The peer wrote that she was setting out “precisely why his remarks are indefensible” and said the phrases he used signalled something else.
“He said, not only to those Muslim women who veil, but to many more who associate with a faith in which some women do, that you don’t belong here,” Warsi said.
“I refuse to accept that these phrases were some kind of mistake, and the offence inadvertent – Johnson is too intelligent and too calculating for that. No, this was all quite deliberate. His refusal to apologise supports that.
“He set out a liberal position, but he did it in a very alt-right way. This allowed him to dog-whistle: to say to particular elements of the party that he’s tough on Muslims. Yet again, he’s trying to have his cake and eat it.”
Arguing that anti-Muslim hate crime was often aimed at women wearing the veil, she added: “So, as much as Johnson thinks he’s being his usual clever self, he’s helping to create an environment in which hate crime is more likely.”
On Monday, Johnson wrote in the Telegraph comparing burqa-wearing women to letterboxes and bank robbers. The Conservative MP, who is considered a major leadership contender, has been told to apologise by Theresa May and the Tory chairman, Brandon Lewis, but has so far refused to do so.
Meanwhile, pressure on Johnson mounted across the Conservative party. A Tory peer said Johnson should have the whip withdrawn, while a cabinet member called on him to retract his words and use language more carefully.
Lord Sheikh, the founder of the Conservative Muslim Forum, set up to encourage British Muslims to get involved in political life, called for the Conservatives 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.
Warsi also said the Conservatives needed to take action, but fell short of calling for the whip to be withdrawn. She argued in her article that Johnson needed to receive diversity training and she would provide it herself if necessary, but pointed out the party itself had allowed Islamophobia to emerge because it had failed to take action in other cases.
“Every time incidents like this occur in the party and there are no consequences, it sends out a clear message that you can get away with Islamophobia. It means that ugly comments can actually enhance reputations, rather than ruin them. If my party follows up on a demand for an apology with real action, then these comments would eventually become rare,” she said.
All apologies: the many times Boris Johnson has been told to say sorry Read more
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.
“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.
Monitoring group Tell Mama said that a record number of anti-Muslim attacks and incidents of abuse were reported last year with women targeted disproportionately.
It said there had been a rise of 26% in verified reports of Islamophobic attacks in the UK in 2017, a total of 1,201. Six out of 10 victims were women, and a third of the attacks had taken place online.
Former attorney general says comments about burqas show Johnson is not a ‘fit and proper’ person to lead Tories
A former Conservative minister has said he would leave the party if Boris Johnson were elected leader, as recriminations mounted over the former foreign secretary’s description of Muslim women in burqas.
The former attorney general Dominic Grieve, who has become a prominent advocate for a soft Brexit, described Johnson’s comments in a Telegraph column as “very embarrassing”. Meanwhile, more Tory MPs called for Johnson to apologise.
In the piece, Johnson said he would not support a ban on the face veil, but compared women wearing a burqa to “letterboxes” and “bank robbers”.
The Conservative chairman, Brandon Lewis, has asked Johnson to apologise for the remarks, which the prime minister, Theresa May, called “offensive”. Both have stopped short of taking concrete action against Johnson, who quit the cabinet last month over the government’s Brexit blueprint.
Johnson’s departure from the cabinet appears to have bolstered his standing among the party grassroots. A poll of Tory members by ConservativeHome found his popularity had quadrupled since leaving office and put him at the top of favoured successors to May.
However, Grieve said his comments showed he would not be a suitable candidate for prime minister.
“If he were to become leader of the party, I for one wouldn’t be in it. I don’t regard him as a fit and proper person to lead a political party and certainly not the Conservative party,” Grieve told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One on Wednesday.
“He is somebody who seems to me to pursue an agenda that is entirely self-referential, doesn’t take account of colleagues. He wasn’t able to observe cabinet responsibility when he was in government.”
Grieve said the comments were symptomatic of a wider “political crisis” where people felt emboldened to repeat offensive but populist views. “If it goes on long enough then probably the foundations of our democracy will be in danger,” he said.
One of the party’s most prominent Muslim politicians, Sayeeda Warsi, wrote in the Guardian on Wednesday that Johnson had used rightwing, “alt-right” language in criticising the appearance of the burqa, which she said contributed to a view that “Muslim women are fair game”.
“I refuse to accept that these phrases were some kind of mistake, and the offence inadvertent – Johnson is too intelligent and too calculating for that. No, this was all quite deliberate. His refusal to apologise supports that,” she said.
“He set out a liberal position, but he did it in a very alt-right way. This allowed him to dog-whistle: to say to particular elements of the party that he’s tough on Muslims. Yet again, he’s trying to have his cake and eat it.”
Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, criticised the comments and said they had been calculated. “I think that this wasn’t an off-the-cuff slip, he wrote a column, he knew exactly what he was doing and I think it crossed from being provocative and starting a debate and actually it became rude and gratuitous,” she said.
“I think he should apologise for them. It doesn’t bode well, and we’ve seen it in the arguments and the debate over antisemitism in Labour, of how we’ve got to a point in 2018 where we’re supposed to be so much better at accepting and discussing and being open about different faiths, religions, backgrounds, social classes, all of these things, and actually we’ve become slightly even more siloed and treating them differently.”
On Tuesday night, the Tory peer Mohamed Sheikh, founder of the Conservative Muslim Forum, said Johnson should have the whip withdrawn. Tory colleagues, including the MP Heidi Allen and the ministers Tobias Ellwood and Alistair Burt, have said he should apologise.
The culture secretary, Jeremy Wright, said Johnson should have chosen his language more carefully and that he was “sure on reflection” that he would want to reconsider the language he had used. Eric Pickles, a former Tory chairman, also said it would be “very sensible” for him to apologise.
Friends of Johnson have said the row is politically motivated, and that other MPs, including the former chancellor Ken Clarke, had made similar remarks comparing the burqa to a bag without similar reproach.
Conor Burns, Johnson’s former parliamentary private secretary, tweeted that colleagues criticising him had not read the piece in full.
The live blog has now ended.
Boris Johnson is facing mounting calls to apologise for his comments about Muslim women who wear the niqab.
The former foreign secretary said wearers of the veil "look like letterboxes" and resemble "a bank robber", adding that the garment was "absolutely ridiculous".
Dominic Grieve, the former attorney general, called the comments "very embarrassing" and said he would leave the Conservative Party if Mr Johnson became leader.
Ruth Davidson also added her voice to the backlash, calling Mr Johnson's claims "gratuitously offensive" and demanding he apologise.
Theresa May and Brandon Lewis, the Tory chairman, also called for an apology, while opposition MPs accused Mr Johnson of Islamophobia.
Conservative peer Lord Sheikh, the former of the Conservative Muslim Forum, said he had asked the party to take "severe action" and remove the whip from Mr Johnson.
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Boris Johnson should lose the Conservative whip over his comments about women wearing the burqa, a senior peer has said.
Theresa May and Brandon Lewis, the Tory party chairman, have called on the former foreign secretary to apologise for suggesting Muslim women wearing the religious clothing looked like “letter boxes”.
But without a public show of contrition, Lord Sheikh told the BBC the party should take “severe action” against Mr Johnson.
The founder of the Conservative Muslim Forum said: “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.”
It comes after the body’s chairman, Mohammed Amin, told The Independent Mr Johnson’s words “were inflammatory and pander to the far-right narrative that Muslims do not belong in this country”.
“I assume that more is not being said or done because of the long series of critical Brexit votes that are coming in the House of Commons and the government’s lack of a majority,” Mr Amin said.
The niqab covers a woman’s whole face apart from her eyes while the burqa adds a transparent veil over the eyes.
Mr Johnson’s comments, made in a newspaper column denouncing the burqa as oppressive for women, attracted widespread criticism. Baroness Warsi accused the Ruislip MP of trying to get “yet another leadership bid” off the ground.
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Defending the former cabinet minister, Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen said there was no need to apologise.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s The World at One programme, he said Mr Johnson had been trying to raise the subject in a “lighthearted way”.
“I think if you can get your point across with a little bit of humour it’s very much appreciated by the public,” he added.
“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 which side they are batting on.”
Mr Bridgen later told Sky News that “millions of years of human evolution” had made people seek “affirmation for our own words and actions in the faces of others and when people can’t see someone’s face it makes them feel uncomfortable”.
Additional reporting by PA
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