Johnson has a dark agenda

Sir, – Boris Johnson’s latest comments attacking Muslims are not a “gaffe”.

In fact they are part of a cynical strategy of scapegoating and political filth thought up by Trump’s strategist Steve Bannon.

Johnson and other senior Brexiteer MPs Jacob Rees Mogg and Michael Gove recently met with Steve Bannon.

Bannon is a fanatical nativist.

He masterminded Trump’s election to the presidency.

Johnson is now elucidating a ploy thought up by Bannon.

They know that Brexit will be a disaster of biblical proportions.

The Brexiteers are seeking to whip-up anti-Muslim hysteria for their own political ends.

However, the selfrighteous indignation by Johnson’s fellow Tories and media figures, who claim they are shocked by his statements, should be dismissed with contempt.

The blathering of this offensive imbecile expresses only in more concentrated form the perpetual hysteria one hears every day in the media.

Johnson is the product of a diseased political environment.

His attack on Muslims, however, runs from a campaign which has been ongoing for some 15 years.

Since the so-called war on terror was declared 15 years ago Muslims have been targeted.

During every imperialist war, the government seeks to cultivate the most backward and racist sentiments.

The war on terror, which has led to the deaths of countless Muslims, is no different, creating an environment in which racist hysteria is relentlessly promoted in the media.

In 2008 the Cardiff School of Journalism did a survey of newspaper articles on Muslims in UK newspapers.

It involved nearly 1,000 articles written since the year 2000, noting the content and context of articles pertaining to Muslims and Islam.

The findings showed that 69% of the articles presented Muslims as a source of problems not just in terms of terrorism but also on cultural issues, and that 26% of the articles portrayed Islam as dangerous, backward or irrational.

Since the Blair years there has been an established pattern.

The government’s response to any and every questioning of its foreign and domestic agenda is to resort to the crudest forms of political propaganda based on nationalism, xenophobia and efforts to panic the population with the threat of terrorist atrocities.

Alan Hinnrichs. 2 Gillespie Terrace, Dundee.