Davidson backs calls for Johnson burka apology
Ruth Davidson has backed calls for Boris Johnson to apologise over his “gratuitously offensive” comments on the burka.
The Scottish Conservative leader said she believes the former foreign secretary should say sorry for comparing women wearing face-covering veils to bank robbers and letter boxes.
Ms Davidson is the latest senior Tory to condemn Mr Johnson for the remarks after Prime Minister Theresa May also urged him to apologise.
She was speaking during an “in conversation” event with former Liberal leader Lord Steel at the Fringe by the Sea in North Berwick, East Lothian, and described the comments as “poor form”.
Ms Davidson said that while
she agrees with the sentiment of the newspaper article in which Mr Johnson made the comments - that face-covering veils should not be banned - his remarks were offensive.
She said: “I think that this wasn’t an off-the-cuff slip, he wrote a column, he knew exactly what he was doing and I think it crossed from being provocative and starting a debate and actually it became rude and gratuitous.”
She added of his comments: “I think he should apologise for them. It doesn’t bode well, and we’ve seen it in the arguments and the debate over anti-semitism in Labour, of how we’ve got to a point in 2018 where we’re supposed to be so much better at accepting and discussing and being open about different faiths, religions, backgrounds, social classes, all of these things, and actually we’ve become slightly
even more silted and treating them differently.
“If you use the analogy of Christianity, would you ever write in the Telegraph that you should have a debate about banning Christians from wearing crucifixes? It’s the same argument but it’s in a different faith so why are the parameters different for one faith and not the other?”
Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright was also among those who said yesterday Mr Johnson’s remarks had crossed a line.
Mr Johnson, who is on holiday abroad, has not been seen in public since his article. However, sources close to him have made clear that he stood by the comments. Tory backbencher Nadine Dorries said the attacks were being led by those on the Remain wing.