Boris Johnson has found himself in a spot of bother today over an article in the Telegraph. The former Foreign Secretary uses his column to say that he disagrees with the Danish government’s decision to ban burkas. However, he has been criticised for also saying that Muslim women wearing burkas ‘look like letter boxes’. A number of top Corbynistas have been quick to denounce him for trying to appeal to the hard-right:
Boris Johnson – currently favourite to be next Tory leader – knows he can get away with comparing niqab-wearing Muslim women to letter boxes because, as Tory Baroness Warsi puts it, Islamophobia is widespread in the Conservatives and goes "all the way up to the top". pic.twitter.com/dP2zy2txF7
— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) August 6, 2018
Just imagine for one moment the sheer enormity of media fury if Jeremy Corbyn had just brazenly mocked the way Jewish people dressed.
This is literally what Boris Johnson has just done, only with Muslims instead.
The media are fully complicit in normalising anti-Muslim hatred. pic.twitter.com/nUYXDRq2qo
— Evolve Politics (@evolvepolitics) August 6, 2018
https://twitter.com/DawnHFoster/status/1026398500869865472
Only Mr S can’t help but wonder if they’re all up to date with the programme for Corbynista favourite The World Transformed festival that coincides with Labour conference. Alongside John McDonnell, Ash – ‘I’m literally a communist’ – Sarkar and Hilary Wainwright will be Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The French socialist veteran who ‘inspired the European left with his radical campaign for the presidency in 2017’ will be speaking to a Momentum-heavy crowd at the event. And what is his view on Muslim dress? Well, it turns out he has advocated a full face veil ban, as well as stating that the burkini was ‘a provocation’ – and the ‘fruit of a Salafist religious offensive’:
‘It is not impossible or contrary to public freedoms and fundamental rights to legislate on dress practices if the defence of public order and human dignity justifies it. The complete concealment of the face is problematic from this dual point of view. It prevents any recognition of the persons concerned, which disturbs public order. And it also deprives them of social existence and undermines their physical and moral integrity which puts into question the dignity of the human person. It is therefore on this double basis that the law could affirm the obligation to have the face discovered in all public places.’
What ever will Jones say?
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