ALISON PHILLIPS ON WHY BORIS INSULT WAS NO GAFFE:
‘He’ll come for you or the ones you love’
DO you think women wearing niqabs look like “letter boxes” or “bank robbers”?
Do you think the burka is “dangerous” or “weird”? Maybe you do. Maybe you don’t. And that is entirely up to you. It’s your opinion and you’re entitled to it. (Although unlike Boris Johnson I’m guessing you don’t get paid a lorryload of cash for spewing up opinions in a right wing newspaper for the upper classes.) But would you go up to a veiled woman in the street taking her kids to school and yell “dangerous” at her? Or point at her on the High Street, guffawing at her outfit? Because that is what Boris Johnson has done. He is acutely aware he is the most famous Tory in the country and every word he utters will be repeated and chewed upon. His words will be heard as a terrifying din by those he belittles. And heard as a rallying call by those he beguiles.
This is not dog-whistle xenophobia we used to hear so much about. This is full-on clanging klaxon xenophobia.
Now it may be that you agree with Johnson’s views on the burka – many people do. I’m not mad keen on the idea of women being told what to wear myself.
Disagreeing with something is fine. Humiliating someone isn’t. So let’s for a moment forget about
what Boris wrote... and focus more on why he wrote it. He wrote it because picking off and humiliating one minority group (and the veil is worn by just a tiny percentage of Britain’s 800,000 Muslim women – this is not a big issue by any stretch) is the classic tactic of the playground bully.
A tactic straight out of the Trump manual for success. Being a bully got Trump elected, just as it did for Erdogan in Turkey and Orban in Hungary.
But when cruelty is used instead of car stickers to win votes, it only intensifies.
If you don’t have a Muslim woman in the family you might not be offended by the “letter box” jibe. Maybe if you don’t have a gay person in the family you won’t be offended if he writes a few columns on “shirtlifters” to win votes. Maybe if you don’t have a disabled child in the family you wouldn’t be offended by a “spaso” jibe to get him to No 10.
But sooner or later he and his type will come for you or the ones you love.
Yes – this language is all unspeakably vile. But that’s where it ends up when the currency of power is cruelty. Yet with votes to be had on the far right of the Conservative party and Mrs May limping around Westminster like a wounded wildebeest, Boris is a man who will use every insult in the book to claim power.
There is no buffoonery or gaffe here – it is a man directing his career with laser-like precision. And his failure to apologise is a calculated attempt to put himself at odds with “the establishment” of the Tory party.
He wants a stand-off with Theresa May and will use every burka-wearing woman in Britain to achieve it.
So yes, there may be elements of what Boris and Trump say with which you or I agree. But never ever have a doubt that there is only one motive for every word they utter – the pursuit of power.