'After his ‘burqa’ comments how has he got the brass neck to say that?'
The prime minister has been accused of being a total hypocrite and of having a brass neck after he called for urgent action to tackle racism in cricket.
Boris Johnson made the comments after Azeem Rafiq delivered a painful and emotional testimony of the racist abuse he had suffered at Yorkshire County Cricket Club, recalling how he was called a ‘P**i’ on multiple occasions and how he was pinned to the floor as a 15 year old and had wine forced down his throat. Giving evidence to the DCMS committee, Rafiq also spoke of how other Asian players were told ‘you lot sit there near the toilets’, and were called ‘Elephant washers’.
He added: “The word P**i’ was used constantly. And there just seemed to be an acceptance in the institution from the leaders and no one stamped it out” and said that racist abuse had cost him his cricket career.
The evidence given by Rafiq was described by many as ‘shocking’ and condemned by politicians. Boris Johnson wrote on Twitter: “Brave testimony from Azeem Rafiq. I commend him for speaking out. There is no excuse for racism anywhere in society and we expect
@EnglandCricket and @YorkshireCCC to take immediate action in response to these allegations.”
That led to many pointing out the prime minister’s own past racist comments, which included comparing Muslim women who wear the Burka to ‘letterboxes’ and ‘bank robbers’. Those comments led to a 375% increase in Islamophobic hate crimes according to hate crime monitoring group TellMAMA.
Boris Johnson has also referred to black people as “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles” and called gay people “bumboys,” saying his comments were “wholly satirical.”
It’s also worth pointing out that while Rafiq was subjected to racist and Islamophobic abuse, the government is yet to come up with its ‘working definition of Islamophobia’, having rejected the one proposed by the APPG on British Muslims which has been adopted by the Labour Party, Lib Dems and the SNP. It’s now been more than 2 years since the government pledged to come up with its own definition.
Reacting to Boris Johnson’s apology, presenter Adil Ray wrote: “PM @BorisJohnson
in response to Azeem Rafiq “There is no excuse for racism anywhere in society”. PM used terms “watermelon smiles” “piccaninnies” & “Muslim letterboxes”. But that was “satirical”. PM’s govt report denied Institutional Racism exists. His hypocrisy proves it does.”
One social media user wrote: “After his ‘burqa’ comments how has he got the brass neck to say that?”, another added: “Wow. The brass neck on this guy is appalling! How dare you @BorisJohnson?! You really think we don’t remember? Trust me, we do.”
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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