It’s day four of the Boris and the burka row over the former foreign secretary’s decision to compare women wearing full face veils to a ‘letterboxes’ in a Telegraph column. And it doesn’t look as though things will die down any time soon.
The Conservatives are planning to launch a party probe into Johnson over his comments. Spearheaded by party chairman Brandon Lewis, complaints against the Tory MP will be referred to an internal disciplinary panel. A Conservative Party spokesman said: ‘The code of conduct process is strictly confidential’.
To say this will go down badly with Johnson’s supporters is an understatement. Given that the whole point of Johnson’s article was a liberal one in line with government policy – i.e. why there shouldn’t be a burka ban – there is a feeling the response has been blown out of proportion. What will particularly annoy them is that this was leaked to George Osborne’s Standard – a paper with an editorial line this is very anti-Boris:
Today’s @EveningStandard
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