TORY bosses have been accused of not taking seriously the dozens of complaints received about Boris Johnson’s burka comments.
Leaked messages from the Tory MPs’ WhatsApp group appeared to suggest that the probe into the former foreign secretary would find the Old Etonian had not broken the party’s code of conduct.
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The Tory party has been tearing itself apart over the remarks made by Johnson in his Telegraph column on Monday, where he compared women wearing the burka to letterboxes and bank robbers.
“If you tell me that the burka is oppressive, then I am with you,” he wrote. “If you say that it is weird and bullying to expect women to cover their faces, then I totally agree - and I would add that I can find no scriptural authority for the practice in the Koran.
“I would go further and say that it is absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes.”
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The Equalities and Human Rights Commission said Johnson’s use of language risked “dehumanising and vilifying Muslim women” and was “inflammatory and divisive”.
100 burka and niqab wearing women wrote to the party complaining about Johnson’s comments. On Thursday it announced an independent panel would be investigating Johnson’s remarks.
But Tory MPs are furious with the party for pandering to the complainers. Messages from the WhatsApp group leaked to the Guido Fawkes blog, include Zac Goldsmith (pictured below) asking “What on earth is the Party doing?!”, while Anne-Marie Trevelyan says CCHQ’s promised inquiry into Johnson as “bizarre and frankly shocking”.
Trevelyan went on to demand: “Perhaps Brandon can explain why this inquiry is happening?”
MP Steve Double tells the others he had held private conversations with Lewis and says the position is “really not as the media are reporting it”.
He adds: “Having spent the day on the doors for the by-election yesterday there is a huge amount of love for Boris out there so the party do need to handle this carefully.”
Johnson also received support from Mr Bean actor Rowan Atkinson, who told The Times he thought the politician’s remarks were funny.
Atkinson wrote in a letter to The Times: “As a lifelong beneficiary of the freedom to make jokes about religion, I do think that Boris Johnson’s joke about wearers of the burka resembling letterboxes is a pretty good one.”
He added: “All jokes about religion cause offence, so it’s pointless apologising for them. You should really only apologise for a bad joke. On that basis, no apology is required.”
Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader agreed with the Blackadder star: “I rather agreed with what he said, which is that there has to be give and take and tolerance on both sides” Duncan Smith told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“The fact is that you can believe in freedom of choice about people wearing burkas but you can also disapprove of what they are. After all, if you believe strongly in equality for women, you may take a very different view about the wearing of them.”
Meanwhile, Aberdeenshire deputy provost Ron McKail apologised for 2016 social media posts mocking women who wear traditional Islamic dress and comparing them to garden parasols.
McKail said “I thought I was sharing material in support of British troops.”
The councillor has previously been forced to apologise after he shared Facebook posts from far-right groups Britain First and the English Defence League, citing at the time that he was “not savvy” with social media.
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