Boris Johnson asked to apologise for comments on veils
LONDON : Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson faced a welter of criticism for his remarks this week on face veils by Muslim women, with Prime Minister Theresa May and others demanding an apology, but he stood his ground on Wednesday.
Seen as a way to burnish his credentials in a future leadership contest in a climate of right-wing headwinds in Europe, Johnson set forth his views on the recent ban on burka in Denmark in his column in The Daily Telegraph.
Johnson, who resigned in July to protest against May’s “soft Brexit” policy, wrote that he felt “fully entitled” to expect women to remove face coverings when talking to him at his constituency office.
Schools and universities should also be able to take the same approach if a student “turns up... looking like a bank robber, ” he wrote. “If you tell me that the burka is oppressive, then I am with you.”
“If you say that it is weird and bullying to expect women to cover their faces, then I totally agree - and I would add that I can find no scriptural authority for the practice in the Koran... I would go further and say that it is absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes.”
Sayeeda Warsi, Johnson’s party colleague and member of the House of Lords, accused him of making “hate crime more likely” with an indefensible, “dog-whistle” reference to fully veiled Muslim women.