Boris Johnson’s comments about Muslim women who wear the burqa have raised a number of issues, some of great importance, some less so. One aspect of this controversy that does not matter very much at all is Johnson himself. As his Daily Telegraph column reminded us, he is a self-regarding, immature and irresponsible man whose overweening ambition fatally clouds his judgment.
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Johnson should never have been appointed foreign secretary. Now that he is thankfully out of government, his puerile opinions and silly quips should, as far as possible, be ignored. He has nothing serious or meaningful to contribute to the running of this country. By deliberately using language that panders to prejudice and perpetuates ignorant stereotypes, he acts in a manner that is dangerous and divisive.
The fact that Johnson is still considered by some Tories to be a possible successor to Theresa May says much about the Conservatives’ deep lack of understanding of modern Britain – and their unfitness to lead it. As one of their own MEPs, Sajjad Karim, said last week, the party must decide whether it is “a genuine one-nation political force or an English nationalist movement”.
A Johnson premiership would be an enormously regressive step away from the tolerant, integrated, fair and equal, multicultural society to which the majority of people in the UK aspire. It is a society, for example, in which the right to free speech is respected, not abused, and in which public figures have a responsibility to be careful of what they say and eschew loose or loaded terminology.
The reaction of Johnson’s allies has been instructive too. Jacob Rees-Mogg, among others, has resorted to the sort of unhelpful hyperbole that disfigures the Brexit debate. Thus, they say, Johnson is the victim of a “show trial” and his detractors are motivated not by concerns over proper conduct in public life but by a sneaky desire to wreck his leadership chances.
This is typical stuff from the Tory right. In their suspicious, dishonourable world, nobody is credited with holding an honest opinion. Yet Rees-Mogg and chums miss the point. Do they still not realise that this row is about so much more than who leads the Tory party? It is about women’s rights, about their freedom to make their own choices and not be told what to do by men. It’s about safety on the streets. It’s about tolerance in a world where fear of difference and otherness is daily encouraged by reckless populists in positions of power.
As much as anything, it is about respect for Muslim religious beliefs and practices. On this subject, the Conservative party has much to learn. To argue Johnson performed a service by questioning the burqa and niqab is fatuous. This issue has been debated for many years, here and elsewhere in Europe, where countries such as France and Denmark have mistakenly imposed bans. What his remarks did do, however, is follow and reinforce an established pattern of Tory Islamophobia.
Theresa May and Brandon Lewis, the Tory chairman, could have pre-empted all this had they heeded the call in June from Harun Khan, head of the Muslim Council of Britain, for an independent inquiry into Islamophobia in the party. Khan listed a series of troubling incidents involving senior Tories, to which Johnson’s blundering insensitivity may now be added.
Not forgotten, either, is the disgraceful behaviour of May herself and senior Tories during the 2016 London mayoral election, which was won by Sadiq Khan. The campaign of his Tory opponent, Zac Goldsmith, implied Khan had links to Islamist extremists. May claimed Khan was unfit to be mayor “at a time when we face a significant threat from terrorism”.
As we said here in June, the need for an investigation into Islamophobia, overt and covert, within Tory ranks is undeniable. At a time when incidents of Islamophobia are rising across Britain, the Tories’ lackadaisical approach is unacceptable. This is not about setting up a three-person panel in some dusty corner of Westminster to decide whether Johnson mis-spoke. It is about rooting out ugly, deep-seated prejudices throughout Britain’s governing party.
Such an inquiry might start, as Hashim Bhatti, a Tory councillor and chair of the youth wing of the Conservative Muslim Forum has suggested, by drafting a definition of Islamophobia similar to that of antisemitism developed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Labour’s damaging travails over antisemitism should act as a warning to May and Lewis about the perils of prevarication.
Yet let us nail one common misapprehension right now. It is true, as many have argued, that there’s an ugly intolerance of honest expression afoot in our era. But it is wrong to say that by censuring Johnson for his deliberately divisive, intellectually dishonest comments, his critics want to censor him too or that they oppose free speech. A “right to ridicule” exists, but Johnson is no freebooting Jonathan Swift and certainly no Voltaire. He aspires to be more than a mere hack or satirist.
What Britain wants, needs and deserves – from those in public life who should be setting an example in these dangerous times – is sensible, intelligent discourse, not taunts and sneers.
