Boris Johnson caused a stir this morning with an article in the Daily Telegraph. The former foreign secretary used his weekly column to argue that the Danish government were wrong to bring in a burka ban. Johnson said that although he thought that it was frankly ‘absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes’, he was uncomfortable with the idea of the state telling a ‘free-born adult woman what she may or may not wear, in a public place, when she is simply minding her own business’.
Critics were quick to go on the offensive over his decision to compare Muslim women dressed in full veils to postboxes and ‘bank robbers’. The Muslim Council of Britain issued a statement condemning Johnson’s ‘regrettable’ comments. As for Labour, Naz Shah – the shadow equalities minister – said Johnson’s ‘racist insults cannot be laughed off’ while David Lammy called Johnson a ‘pound-shop Donald Trump’ – accusing him of ‘fanning the flames of Islamophobia’ to boost his leadership chances.
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