Boris Johnson comments on women in burqas made Tories seem ‘insensitive’ to Muslims, says probe
Anti-Muslim sentiment within the Tory party “remains a problem” and Boris Johnson’s comments on women in burqas created a sense that the party is “insensitive” to the community, according to a report into Islamophobia in the party.
The independent report, authored by professor Swaran Singh, also said there was a “recurrent concern” among community groups that Lord Zac Goldsmith’s 2016 mayor of London “campaign had played on anti-Muslim sentiments”.
Singh said Johnson and the leadership of the Tories “ought to set a good example for appropriate behaviours and language” when it came to Muslim relations.
However, Singh also said that claims the Conservative party was institutionally racist “were not borne out by the evidence available to the investigation” and that “no evidence was found to support the suggestion that the party had collectively or systematically failed any particular community or group in its processes for dealing with complaints”.
The report found that instances of Islamophobia were found at a local party and individual level and was not endemic to the structures of the organisation.
Johnson wrote in the Daily Telegraph in 2018 that Muslim women who wear burqas look like “letterboxes” and “bank robbers”.
The Prime Minister said in the report that he was “sorry for any offence taken”.
Speaking to Singh, he said: “Would I use some of the offending language from my past writings today? Now that I am Prime Minister, I would not.”
Between 2015 and 2020 the Conservative party received 1,418 complaints concerning 727 incidents of alleged discrimination.
Around two-thirds of these complaints concerned anti-Muslim discrimination and three-quarters of these were over social media.
Singh said there was “clear evidence of a party complaints system in need of overhaul” and recommended that the party publishes an “action plan” within six weeks to lay out how it will “tackle the failings highlighted” in the report.
Responding to the investigation, a Tory spokesperson said: “The Party is considering the recommendations set out by the report. We will respond later today.”
Labour’s shadow women and equalities secretary Marsha de Cordova said: “This report is a damning indictment of the discrimination rife in the Conservative Party, and it goes all the way up to the Prime Minister.
“Reports of Islamophobic hate crime spiralled in the weeks after Boris Johnson likened women who wear the burka to ‘letterboxes’ and ‘bank robbers’.
“He must now issue a full and proper public apology that acknowledges the pain and hurt he has caused in the Muslim community, as well as taking meaningful action to rebuild trust, especially among Muslim women.”