Kick ‘racist’ burka row Boris out of charity, say angry colleagues
A BBC presenter has resigned from her position with a charity where Boris Johnson is a patron and a Guardian writer plans to step down after the former Foreign Secretary’s burka comments.
Mr Johnson’s remarked two weeks ago that Muslim women wearing burkas looked like ‘bank robbers’ or ‘letterboxes’.
Now the broadcaster Natalie Haynes has branded the former foreign secretary a ‘dog-whistling racist and misogynist’ and has quit from the charity that they both belong to.
Charlotte Higgins, a Guardian writer, has said she will resign as well unless the charity ends its association with him. But Tory MPs sprang to Mr Johnson’s defence, saying he had the right to express himself. MP Andrew Bridgen said: ‘These resignations smack of blatant Left-wing virtue signalling.’
The Prime Minister criticised his comments and a party investigation into his behaviour has begun.
Mr Johnson has refused to apologise and has also won the support of members of the public who have defended his right to freedom of speech. But Miss Haynes, a patron of the charity Classics for All, which champions the subject in schools, quit over his comments. She wrote to the charity saying: ‘I don’t feel able to stay on as a patron of a charity which offers Boris Johnson the slightest veneer of respectability.’
Miss Haynes – currently hosting a BBC Radio 4 show – said she hoped the charity’s board would fire Johnson. She said: ‘I hope they will choose to shun a person who chooses to advance his own cause at any price with no regard for those caught in the crossfire.’
In her letter to the charity, Miss Higgins, the Guardian’s chief culture writer, wrote: ‘Boris Johnson has chosen - disguised under the guise of a liberal argument - to make cruel, derogatory and belittling remarks about a section of our community that is not powerful, not well represented and that is under particular threat from racism, misogyny and Islamophobia at this time.’
Classics for All would not comment on the issue, while a spokesman for Boris Johnson said he declined to comment. Earlier this week, the charity said it is committed to increasing access to classics and works with many Muslim pupils. ‘We do not endorse Boris Johnson’s statement,’ they added.