The worldwide trend of odd-looking white men with weird hair making offensive comments continues this week with Tory Boris Johnson and his burka joke.

Continuing in his long-standing tradition of putting his foot in his mouth, Boris thought it would be funny to compare Muslim women in burkas to post boxes and bank robbers.

Considering that Boris is an old white man, and a prominent figure, in a country with a bad track record when it comes to Islamophobia, this was, to put it lightly, ill-advised.

It should come as no surprise then that Boris is facing a possible investigation into breaches of the Conservative Party code of conduct. The BBC reports that:

The party has received dozens of complaints about the ex-foreign secretary’s comments about Muslim women wearing burkas.

The complaints will be looked at by an independent panel which could refer Mr Johnson to the party’s board, which has the power to expel him.

The party declined to comment on the details of the investigation.

A Conservative Party spokesman said: “The code of conduct process is strictly confidential.” A source close to Mr Johnson offered no comment.

Conservative Party chairman Brandon Lewis and leader Theresa ‘Thatcher-in-the-rye’ May have both called on Boris to apologise for his remarks. Meanwhile, more than 30 protesters have gathered in Boris’s constituency of Uxbridge, calling for his resignation.

And they aren’t the only ones clapping back:

A hundred Muslim women who wear the niqab or burka have signed a letter to Mr Lewis, calling on him to withdraw the Conservative whip from Mr Johnson and launch an independent inquiry into Islamophobia in the party.

“We are not forced to make these clothing choices, nor are we oppressed,” the women write in their letter, which has been issued to the media by the Muslim Council of Britain.

They say Mr Johnson’s words will “inflame tensions in a way that makes it easier for bigots to justify hate crimes against us”.

Azmat Parveen, who attended the protest in Uxbridge on Thursday, called Mr Johnson’s comments “painful”.

“This is a way of life, I want to choose this way and somebody remarks on it, I can’t bear it, it is very, very rude,” the 68-year-old said.

Boris is refusing to apologise, and appears to be doubling down on his sentiments:

Mr Johnson has rejected calls to apologise for saying people wearing burkas looked like “letter boxes” or “bank robbers”, in a Daily Telegraph column in which he also argued against a ban on full-face veils.

Critics have accused him of stoking Islamophobia to boost his Tory leadership ambitions but his supporters have said he was speaking up for “liberal values”.

It’s not the first time that phrases like ‘liberal values’ and ‘freedom of speech’ have been deployed in defense of things like Islamophobia and sexism.

Rule of thumb for jokes, Boris – they’re only funny if they don’t contribute to systemic oppression.

[source:bbc]