Boris Johnson: he doesn’t care about Muslims who died 25 years ago. He probably thinks they were just another bunch of heathens. But he’ll watch you die and then talk about you the same way he referred to them.
I don’t care if he wrote it 23 years ago – Boris Johnson should have been apologising to Bosnian Muslims ever since.
Writing about the Srebrenica massacre, which happened 25 years ago today (July 11), Johnson stated in 1997: “They weren’t exactly angels, these Muslims.”
It’s yet another example of England’s Shame being unable to hold his tongue, therefore proving his imbecility to the world.
Let’s go over the details for those who may not be aware of them: a quarter of a century ago, Serbs led by Ratko Mladic murdered 8,000 Muslims who had sought refuge from them in Srebrenica, which the UN was trying to protect with Dutch forces.
Even Johnson has admitted it was the worst massacre on European soil since World War II.
I was in Bosnia in the 1990s and I think I understand why he said Bosnian Muslims weren’t angels.
You see, when violence broke out in the former Yugoslavia, Muslim Bosnia had no army to call its own and therefore no weapons with which to fend off other former Yugoslav countries’ armies of extermination.
So when the tanks rolled into their towns, they dispersed into the hills…
And when night fell, they came back down and used every means at their disposal to obtain weapons. That required them to do extreme violence to their Serb occupiers – some with their bare hands, some with kitchen knives.
It was that or death.
And it was a war of attrition. As the Bosnian Muslims gained weapons, they used them to gain more – and heavier – arms until they were eventually able to force out the occupiers.
That is how the war was explained to me. It was not without risks for those Bosnian Muslims, but I notice that Johnson said nothing about the reprisals suffered by any who were caught.
I could tell you about incidents that would turn your hair white, but I won’t. Some details of genocide are best left to be told by the peoples who suffered it.
They were people facing extermination.
I cannot help questioning Johnson’s choice to lay that label on them. Was he attempting a little discreet manipulation?
You see, in saying these people weren’t “angels”, he was stigmatising all people who stand up against murderous oppression.
Perhaps he was thinking ahead to a future when a Conservative government headed by someone like himself would be gleefully exterminating people with long-term illnesses, disabilities and care needs, and demonising anybody who tried to speak up for them with a rhetoric about “scroungers” and “skivers”.
Can’t you just imagine him commenting on the latest deaths? “Appalling. But they weren’t exactly angels, these cripples.”
Boris Johnson’s comments about the clothes worn by Muslim women are only part of the huge volume of Islamophobia and racial hatred he has tried to stir up on his own – but the EHRC is happy to let the Tories investigate accusations against the party.
It won’t matter what the Equality and Human Rights Commission has to say about Labour and anti-Semitism now.
It is clear that the organisation is not fit for purpose as, despite having “equality” as part of its title, it is incapable even of treating the UK’s two main political parties equally.
Boris Johnson’s behaviour alone provides a prima facie case for investigating Islamophobia in the Conservative Party.
If the EHRC can’t see that, then no decision it makes about the Labour Party can have any weight at all.
I recommend that it be disbanded and replaced by an organisation staffed by people who can do the job properly.
The Conservative Party will not face a probe by the equalities watchdog over Islamophobia in its ranks after launching its own independent investigation into discrimination.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said an investigation “would not be proportionate” after the Tories published the terms of reference for the party’s own inquiry, which included specific mentions of Islamophobia.
But the terms were described as a “facade” by the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), which argued the Tories’ investigation was too narrow even compared to Labour’s much-criticised Chakrabarti inquiry into anti-Semitism.
The inquiry would “hide the hundreds of incidences of Islamophobic bigotry” in the Tory party identified by the MCB, it said.
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Current speculation that Boris Johnson may resign as prime minister could be more than a little premature as his position as prime minister may be all that’s keeping him from a criminal conviction.
BoJob was rightly pulled up short during Prime Minister’s Questions last week, when Sikh MP Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi took him to task over his 2018 Daily Telegraph column comparing Muslim women with “bank robbers” and “letterboxes”.
He said: “For those of us who from a young age have had to endure and face up to being called names such as towel-head, or Taliban, or coming from bongo-bongo land, we can fully appreciate the hurt and pain of already vulnerable Muslim women when they are described as looking like bank robbers and letterboxes.
“Rather than hide behind sham and whitewash investigations, when will the prime minister finally apologise for his derogatory and racist remarks?”
BoJob dodged the issue, of course.
But there is a case to answer.
According to the Public Order Act 1986, “A person who … displays any written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, is guilty of an offence if … having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby.”
Anybody found guilty of such a crime could face up to seven years in prison.
I mention this because we know from monitoring group Tell Mama that anti-Muslim hate crime increased by 375 per cent in the week after Boris Johnson’s article was published.
It was a rise from eight incidents the previous week to 38. Of the 38 anti-Muslim hate incidents, 22 were directed at Muslim women who wore the niqab, or face veil.
The group recorded a total of 57 incidents in the three weeks following the publication of the column by the former foreign secretary and current prime minister, 32 of which were directed at Muslim women.
It said that between August 5 and 29, 2018, 42 per cent of the street-based incidents reported to Tell Mama directly referenced Johnson and the language used in his column.
I’m no lawyer but that evidence seems conclusive to me!
I look forward to the day BoJob comes out of the cabinet to face prosecution on that basis.
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Evidence from the monitoring group Tell Mama shows that Boris Johnson is a sexist and a racist who promotes sectarian violence against people of other religions.
This is the man who is trying to take the UK out of the European Union in such a way that he will be able to strip rights from particular sections of society and persecute as he pleases.
We know he is capable of it because we have witnessed the persecution of the sick and disabled, with thousands of people having their benefits withdrawn for no good reason, driving them to poverty and death.
Who knows what Dictator Johnson would do to other minority groups, given the chance?
He has to go. The sooner, the better.
Hopefully events in Westminster over the next few days will eject him.
If not, then we must find ways to push him out.
Boris Johnson’s comments on women wearing the veil led to a surge in anti-Muslim attacks and incidents of abuse, the monitoring group Tell Mama has said.
In its annual report, the group said [a] significant spike occurred in August [2018] after Johnson wrote a column referring to veiled Muslim women as “letterboxes” and “bank robbers”.
In the week following that article, Tell Mama said anti-Muslim incidents increased by 375% – from eight incidents the previous week, to 38 in the following.
Of the 38 anti-Muslim hate incidents, 22 were directed at Muslim women who wore the niqab, or face veil.
The group recorded a total of 57 incidents in the three weeks following the publication of the column by the former foreign secretary and current prime minister, 32 of which were directed at Muslim women. It said that between 5 and 29 August, 42% of the street-based incidents reported to Tell Mama directly referenced Johnson and the language used in his column.
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Police presence: A police car outside the Islamic centre.Isn’t it incredibly hypocritical that an incident in which a Muslim crashes a car into pedestrians outside Parliament is an act of Islamic terrorism, but the same organisation can’t bring itself to label one in which a driver crashes a car into pedestrians outside a Muslim centre – shouting Islamophobic slogans – as an act of anti-Islamic terrorism.
What gives, BBC?
You reported that the police were treating it as a hate crime. Explain why you didn’t report it as a terrorist attack. I really want to know, and I don’t think I’m the only one.
Remember, terrorism is defined as “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims” – and I think the fact the perpetrator(s) shouted Islamophobic slogans shows a political aim.
How do you expect average British citizens to have a zero tolerance attitude towards islamophobia when our government tolerate it and consistently brush it under the carpet with islamophobic MPs 🗣🗣🗣🗣🗣
The Conservative government is a racist, Islamophobic organisation, therefore it does not acknowledge attacks on Muslims as racist or Islamophobic, let alone terrorist.
Does anybody, in all seriousness, need me to provide examples of Tory racism when Boris Johnson and Theresa May are still in public life?
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Divisive: The row over Boris Johnson’s comments about women who wear the burqa looking like “letterboxes” and “bank robbers” has uncovered a deep vein of hatred for Muslims in the Conservative Party.
The manufactured anti-Semitism row in the Labour Party continues to shield Conservatives from justifiable criticism of their own Islamophobia.
Consider this incident, reported on Twitter but not (to the best of my knowledge) in the Tory-supporting press.
Sickening. Mrs Mike asked where the parents of the perpetrators were and why they weren’t around to stop this attack.
Answer: I don’t know. Perhaps they are Conservatives who support Islamophobic violence.
The backlash has been predictable. Aleesha, who tweets on politics and Muslim issues, makes the obvious connection between incitement to hate Islamic citizens of the UK and the violence it encourages:
My heart is so broken watching this. I have no words. Islamophobia has real consequences on real people. Horrifying. https://t.co/Xm5R6udNiM
Why is it allowed? Ask Baroness Warsi, who was no good as a Cabinet member and is now being systematically ignored by her fellow Tories and the Tory-supporting press – for raising the issue of Islamophobia.
In the tweets below, she correctly identifies the problem – that her fellow Tories are happy to get on the anti-Muslim bandwagon because, thanks to the divisive attitude they have encouraged in the press, it makes them more popular with the public.
Speaking out against “Muslim bashing” leads to a sharp drop in popularity, as indicated by a poll on a pro-Tory website:
What does this say about my Party @Conservatives ? Muslim bashing will tragically continue to be an attractive political option as long as there is political mileage in Muslim bashing. 😔 https://t.co/aHFfyk2jwn
The ConservativeHome article states: “Finally, there are two particularly large losses in the table, which appear to be linked. Brandon Lewis, who was as high as +46.6 in June, loses a further 31.2 points this month, falling from -2.7 to -33.9. That is a brutal verdict from Party members on their chairman, and seems to be directly linked to his handling of the Boris Johnson burka row and the ensuing investigation. Similarly, Ruth Davidson’s normally quite unassailable rating has suffered, dropping from +54.4 to +33.8, I suspect due to her intervention in the same dispute, when she compared wearing a burkha to wearing a cross.”
The conclusion is clear:
If there is a problem with racism and sectarianism, it has its home in the Conservative Party. And we are all being distracted from it with spurious claims about Labour.
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A new experimental initiative has seen numerous British Muslim women swap their traditional full face veils for an outfit made popular by Top Gear’s “The Stig.”
The aim of the trial is to make both Muslim women and xenophobic man-babies feel more safe and comfortable going about their lives in public.
So far the results have been positive. An anonymous test group of women in dangerous no-go-zone Luton reported dramatic changes to the way they were approached in the street.
“The same men who used to spit at me now ask me to sign their neck so they can get it tattooed. It feels like a minor change but the reaction couldn’t be more different. One man offered to by me a pint of lager and when I didn’t respond he just said ‘classic’ and left.”
Other suggested future experiments include dressing Jeremy Corbyn in a Gareth Southgate waistcoat and putting Tommy Robinson’s face on Halal goods.
For Mr Johnson, whose claim that Muslim women in burqas look like “letterboxes” and “bank robbers”, the future is looking a lot less cheery – and that goes for the Conservative Party, too.
The Tories appear to be imploding over the issue – which highlights genuine prejudice against a religious group, rather than the assumed prejudice in allegations of anti-Semitism against the Labour Party.
A former aide of David Cameron, Lord Cooper, and Muslim leaders have joined the chorus of condemnation against the comments, made in a Telegraph article last week. Here’s the Observer‘s piece:
A Tory peer and former aide to David Cameron [Lord Cooper] accused Boris Johnson of “moral emptiness”, casual racism and “courting fascism” as division over the former foreign secretary’s comments about Muslim women threatened to develop into a full-blown crisis for Theresa May and her party.
After Johnson, who returned from holiday abroad on Saturday, refused to apologise, Cooper said: “The rottenness of Boris Johnson goes deeper even than his casual racism and his equally casual courting of fascism. He will advocate literally anything to play to the crowd of the moment. His career is a saga of moral emptiness and lies; pathetic, weak and needy; the opposite of strong.”
An abnormal spike in anti-Muslim abuse aimed at women wearing the hijab and niqab has been recorded by the government-backed hate crime monitoring group Tell Mama.
The majority of niqab-wearing victims who have called Tell Mama’s helpline since the article appeared said the perpetrator either used phrases such as “letterbox” or referred to Johnson.
The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), has weighed in to say support for Mr Johnson from Tory MPs and others “shone a light on the underbelly of Islamophobia” in the party.
There seems to be evidence supporting this. Mr Johnson is, it seems, unlikely to lose the whip or face official censure as a result of the internal investigation – though he may be asked to take diversity training – an offer he seems certain to resist.
Party leader Theresa May is facing the possibility that the row will do lasting damage to Conservative-Muslim relations – but this is unlikely to bother her too much because she is herself, as we all know, deeply racist.
More concerning for Gollum is the possibility that the row will enthuse Mr Johnson’s support base for a potential leadership contest.
That would really boost the Tories, wouldn’t it? Swapping one racist for another!
And it’s easy to see where Mr Johnson gets his views:
A close friend of Johnson told the Observer that he was “as likely to ride naked down Blackfriars cycle lane waving an EU flag” as he was to apologise. His father, Stanley, writing in the Sunday Telegraph… said that his son was “spot on” in his comments on the burqa, but should have gone further and called for a ban in certain circumstances.
One wonders what this gentleman would have said while he was appearing in I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, if he had ever been confronted by an aborigine.
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Boris Johnson: He may think women wearing burqas look like bank robbers, but he is a clown, even when he isn’t wearing the make-up.
At long last, Boris Johnson’s racism is being addressed – and at just the wrong moment for the Conservative Party.
The Tories have been quiet for a week, allowing their poodles in the mass media to feast on the Labour “anti-Semitism” row – and it seems likely Theresa May was hoping none of her MPs would do anything stupid enough to raise a comparison.
And then Mr Johnson opened his mouth, said Muslim women in burqas resemble letterboxes and bank robbers, and reopened the Tory “Islamophobia” row.
Tory chairman Brandon Lewis has condemned it, after Baroness Warsi called it “dog-whistle” Islamophobia.
So far, Theresa May has been silent – but this cannot continue, unless she wants the whole country to conclude that she has learned nothing from the Windrush scandal.
That revelation told us that Mrs May had been involved in a racist vendetta against UK citizens who immigrated into the UK on the Empire Windrush, or were descended from people who had done so.
Amber Rudd lost her job as Home Secretary because of that fiasco – in order to save Mrs May’s political bacon.
It became important for the Tory government to show it had learned its lesson – but new Home Secretary Sajid Javid has been exposed blackmailing victims of the Windrush scandal into signing “gagging” orders in order to received fast-track compensation payments.
And now this.
Perhaps Mrs May thinks she won’t have to say anything – that she can weather this summer storm because Jeremy Corbyn is under so much pressure.
But the accusations of anti-Semitism against him are false.
And Theresa May really is a racist, in charge of a racist government.
Additional: It seems the Tory leader is unlikely to do anything about Mr Johnson’s racism – because she is unwilling to rock the boat ahead of crucial Brexit votes after the summer recess. Reading between the lines, I would call that an admission of widespread racism in the ranks of the Parliamentary Conservative Party.
Boris Johnson has been told by Conservative party chiefs to apologise for his claim that Muslim women in burqas resemble letter boxes and bank robbers.
The Tory chairman, Brandon Lewis, said he had asked the former foreign secretary to say sorry for his controversial remarks in an attempt to draw a line under the Islamophobia row.
It came after Alistair Burt, the minister for the Middle East, who worked under Johnson, described the comments as offensive and said he would never have said anything similar.
The former Conservative chairman Sayeeda Warsi has accused Johnson of “dog-whistle” Islamophobia and criticised the lack of action by the party on the issue.
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After a week in which she desperately tried to steer the public discourse away from the racism in her own policies, it must have been disheartening for Theresa May to hear a former chair of the Conservative Party saying the following to Robert Peston on his Sunday morning show:
Considering the way Parliament hosted a debate – in fact, more like an institutionalised slagging-off of Jeremy Corbyn – over the allegations of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, at least one response was going to be obvious:
Will there be a House of Commons debate on institutionalised racism in the Conservative Party at some point this week? Just asking for a friend.
Believe it or not, though, the UK’s mainstream media seem keen – desperate, in fact – to sweep this under the carpet. Racism? Islamophobia? In the Conservative Party? The very thought!
At least, that seems to be the attitude.
I had to go to alleged Russian propoganda and fake news site RT to find a report on what Baroness Warsi told Peston viewers – and it was revealing:
“In light of the recent anti-Semitism row that has engulfed UK Labour, with wall-to-wall MSM broadcast, print, and social media coverage that has painted the issue as a “crisis” for the main opposition party, one may have thought this would have grabbed the attention of the media establishment.
“The reality? Cue the tumbleweed.
“Indeed, not even the presenter interviewing Baroness Warsi, Robert Peston, picked up the revelation to investigate the matter more fully.
“So, why the media silence? Could it be that the MSM are more focused on misdemeanors, perceived or otherwise, committed by Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, as part of what some see as a concerted campaign to undermine his authority and weaken his standing as leader, for fear that one day he may become prime minister?
“Others may suggest that Islamophobia is not seen by a majority of the British media as such a terrible scourge on our society as anti-Semitism.
“Whatever the reason for the MSM blackout on Baroness Warsi’s admission, the concerns of many that large sections of the media apply lower moral standards to the Tories than to Labour, will not be adequately addressed while claims of Islamophobia in the Conservative Party are ignored.”
I have written on racism in the Conservative Party in the past – yes, even before the Windrush scandal – and it would be easy to link to those articles to show examples.
But I think it would be better to offer a Muslim’s view on Islamophobia. Here‘s Aleesha – some of you may already know her from her Twitter account; she also writes a blog, and this is some of what she has to say:
“As a young British Muslim woman involved in politics, I’ve seen the rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric in British politics, and nobody is acting on it, nobody is condemning it and quite frankly, it’s disgusting that our politicians can get away with it.
“Very recently, Conservative MP, Bob Blackman shared an islamophobic page and article on his Facebook and then apologised for it when he was called out. However, this isn’t the first time that Bob has endorsed the anti-Muslim sentiment, he previously retweeted anti-Muslim posts from Tommy Robinson, a notorious bigot. Moreover, Bob Blackman had also hosted an anti-Muslim extremist in Parliament, a man who praised the Rohingya genocide, called for genocide of Kashmiri Muslims and called for Islam to be “wiped out” from this planet. What annoys me most about all of this is the entire fact that it’s hardly made the news, just briefly and there’s hardly any outrage, and our MPs aren’t condemning it or calling it out. I’d at least expect our Muslim MPs to call it out regardless of political ideologies but all I see is silence. Just imagine for a second that Bob was a Labour MP, or imagine if, in this instance, it was another religion. Just imagine the outrage. The silence from Theresa May and the Tories and their inability to act on this speaks volumes.
“Bob Blackman’s islamophobia isn’t just one case in politics. There are many. One of which dates back to the London Mayoral elections, where Zac Goldsmith launched an islamophobic campaign against Sadiq Khan. The Tories didn’t act, nobody acted and Zac Goldsmith still remains as an MP for Richmond.
“Go to Sadiq Khan’s Twitter profile, browse through his Tweets and look at all of the replies to them. You will almost always see islamophobic and racial abuse tweeted to him.
“I’m also writing this just after reading a Tweet from the official EU Leave account that said Britain has an “exploding” Muslim population.
“Why is nobody acting? I have been blocked by Tory councillors and Tory MPs when I call islamophobia out. Why are these MPs and councillors supporting islamophobes? It makes me think that the Tory party has an actual problem with islamophobia, not to mention the dozens of times I’ve been religiously abused by Tories.
“Are we just going to ignore it? When will we give these cases the rightful outrage? Islamophobia is absolutely normalised in British politics and nobody is really doing anything about it. The silence from our politicians shows their inability to act and their legitimation/endorsement of these views. Are we going to act, or are we going to do nothing and let MPs like Bob Blackman host more extremists in Parliament?”
Consider Baroness Warsi’s words at the top of this article and the answer is clear – at least as far as the Conservatives are concerned.
Islamophobia? They love it!
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While Tories are up in arms about anti-Muslim retweets by Donald Trump, let’s remember that they wouldn’t care less if he had targeted disabled people [Image: www.disabledgo.com]
Amidst the furore over US President Donald Trump retweeting messages attacking Muslims, by far-right extremists Britain First, the following tweet struck a chord with This Writer:
Theresa May's official spokesman said: "Britain First seeks to divide communities using hateful narratives which peddles lies and stokes tensions. The British people overwhelmingly reject the hate group."
Replace "Britain First" with "The Tories" and it works just as well.
One of the most hateful lies used by the Tories to divide communities was the narrative they peddled that people with disabilities were “scroungers” and “skivers”, and that they were “sponging” off the state when they should be at work.
The effect of that lie has been appalling, with recorded hate crime against disabled people increasing hugely over the last few years.
And the number of sick and disabled benefit claimants who have died while the Department for Work and Pensions played silly games with their applications and found flimsy excuses to deny them the support they were owed is mostly unrecorded – because the government never bothers to check what happens to people it cuts off.
Even people whose disabilities are acknowledged by the Tories are more than £2,000 worse off than they were before the Tories took office in 2010 – due to punitive cuts in the amount of benefit they receive.
I mention this because Labour’s Debbie Abrahams has called for the Tories to reconsider their determination to continue applying an austerity to the disabled that they seem to forget when considering support for people like – say – bankers.
She said: “The Tories’ cuts to social security support are pushing more and more disabled people into poverty. Last week’s Budget failed to do anything for disabled people even though the recent Equality and Human Rights Commission report showed a disabled adult is over £2,000 a year worse off since 2010. Even the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities condemned this Government for causing a ‘human catastrophe’ in their failure to uphold the rights of disabled people.
“This ‘plan’ from the Government looks like nothing more than a guise for more cuts. The Tories have already hit disabled people who are not fit for work but who may be in the future in the Work Related Activity Group. I hope they are not going to now target the most disabled people in the support group, as their Green Paper hinted at.
“At the 2015 General Election, the Tories promised to halve the disability employment gap. Since then they have dropped this commitment.
“If this Government really cared about disabled people they would end austerity now which is disproportionately impacting upon disabled people and reform and extend Access to Work for those disabled people who are able to work.“
The statement will gain no support at all from the Tories.
But what if Ms Abrahams – or the appropriate shadow minister, who would be Dawn Butler – had been calling for an easing of policies that unfairly target Muslims?
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