Tim Newark
leader of the Conservative Party. Well, doesn’t that let the cat out of the bag? Grieve is a leading Remainer causing great problems to May’s Government as he votes against many of her Brexit measures.
Both Davidson and May are Remainers, too. Clearly this storm in a teacup is being used to draw the battle lines within the Conservative Party between those who favour Brexiteer Boris as our next Prime Minister and those who don’t. Remainers see it as an opportunity to knock him out of the parliamentary race before it has even begun.
But by taking this course they are flying in the face of their own Conservative Party constituency associations which resolutely back Boris in this tiff. As with their soft approach to Brexit, they are out of touch with their grassroots supporters. And it is the rank and file members who are the ones that work hard to get them re-elected.
As a nation we are sick and tired of being told what we can and cannot say for risk of offending someone. Boris has deftly brought this rising anger to the forefront of politics. We want political leaders who reflect our legitimate concerns, not seek to sweep them under the carpet and apologise for them.
Boris’s burka comments are plugging into the same impatience with political correctness that brought Donald Trump to power in the US. President Trump demonstrates how refreshing it is to hear a politician stand up and say what we are all thinking.
Boris was not malign or racist but simply reflecting a valid view in this country that the wearing of the burka is incompatible with Western values.
As an imam wrote in support of Boris, the burka is not a central requirement of Islam and panders to a patriarchal view of society in which a woman is a man’s property.
More recently it has been used by some women to express support for hardline Islam that disapproves of our Western attitudes, which in turn has led to Islamist terrorism.
Despite all that I agree with Boris that it is not up to government to legislate what a woman can and cannot wear, although certain institutions are equally entitled to require that Muslim women reveal their faces in public discourse.
SO TO condemn Boris for having the temerity to discuss this subject in his typically quirky style is the real stuff of intolerance and we should soundly refute it.
Hopefully the Conservative Party leadership will come to its senses and reject any call to discipline Boris over this. If not they will pay a heavy price at the next election as voters desert their prissy posturing for more robust politicians unafraid to express our true feelings.
In the search for our next possible leader Boris has done himself a tremendous favour in revealing yet again the fault line between the liberal elite who refuse to back the popular consensus because they believe they are better than us.
Maybe a couple of jokes about burkas will be the catalyst to shake us out of our current national timidity and point us towards a more positive courageous Brexit-backing future. For a country celebrated for its sense of humour that would be a very appropriate resolution to this ridiculously exaggerated uproar.
‘Sick of being told what we can and can’t say’