BORIS Johnson has reluctantly offered an apology for comparing Muslim women wearing burkas to letterboxes.

In an interview on ITV’s This Morning with Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby, the Prime Minister said: “People dig out all sorts of articles … I’ve already said sorry for any offence caused and I say it again.”

The Tory leader claimed his words had been taken out of context, adding: “What [the party] have to do is have an inquiry over xenophobia and prejudice of all kinds.”

Johnson was also asked about article he’d written which ridicule single mothers and their children.

However, he declined to apologise for this.

He told the presenters: “I don’t think this is the time to talk about articles written quite a long time ago.”

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The Prime Minister was also asked if London Bridge attacker Usman Khan should have been “locked up” and had the key thrown away.

He replied: “I think actually you must always try to rehabilitate people – you’ve always got to give people a chance ... But there are some people, and I think probably this guy is one of them, who just are not capable of being changed and in his case the best thing for the public and for him was to keep him inside and it was wrong to have early release.”

In other campaign news, three of Nigel Farage’s MEPs quit yesterday, urging Brexit-supporting voters to back the Tories next week.

Annunziata Rees-Mogg, Lance Forman and Lucy Harris all resigned saying the only way to get Brexit delivered was for Johnson to win a majority.

“It is clear to me that the Brexit Party is splitting the vote of Leavers in marginal and not-so-marginal constituencies,” Rees-Mogg said.

Farage told the BBC’s Andrew Neil that the splitters had close links to the Tories.

He said: “One of them [Rees-Mogg] is the sister of a Cabinet minister. Another one has a boyfriend working for that Cabinet minister and another one is a personal friend of Boris Johnson’s.”

He added: “They joined the Brexit Party. They joined the coalition that I put together. They clearly were disaffected with Mrs May as leader. We are not the Conservative Party.

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“I tell you something, Boris Johnson’s deal unamended is unacceptable. I certainly stand by that.”

A fourth MEP, John Longworth was expelled earlier this week for criticising the party’s election strategy.

Meanwhile, the Electoral Commission revealed that the Conservatives raked in substantially more large donations last week than all the other political parties put together.

Johnson’s party raised £3,590,500, while Labour took in £521,909. The LibDems received £509,998, while the Green Party of England and Wales were given £100,000.

The Tory party donations include £1 million from billionaire Peter Hargreaves – a man who last year described the Prime Minister as a “buffoon”.

In total over the last three weeks, the Tories have had donations worth £12,231,146, while Labour has received £4,228,499.