Donald Trump and the United Kingdom’s (UK) Prime Minister (PM) Boris Johnson have a startling number of likenesses. They are both erratic, go-it-aloners, and superficially clownish. Plus, both have outrageously bad haircuts. The British Trump and the original have something else darker in common.
A Sikh legislator just stood up in the UK House of Commons and demanded Prime Minister Boris Johnson apologize for what he said last year about Muslim women, his “derogatory and racist remarks” last year.
Tanmanjeet Singh spoke up during the PM’s first former question-and-answer session. He condemned the Tory leader for his insult to Muslim women. In a newspaper column, Johnson said that women wearing burqas were like “letterboxes” and “bank robbers.”
The first turbaned Sikh member of the Labour (British Spelling) Party stood and addressed the Parliament, according to The Guardian:
‘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.’
BBC Politics tweeted the interaction:
‘MPs applaud, as Labour’s Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi tells Boris Johnson to apologise (British spelling) for “derogatory and racist remarks” comparing Muslim women who wear a hijab to “bank robbers and letterboxes”#PMQs updates: https://t.co/utgDYwGajI pic.twitter.com/CDMQRGJGL8’
MPs applaud, as Labour’s Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi tells Boris Johnson to apologise for “derogatory and racist remarks” comparing Muslim women who wear a hijab to “bank robbers and letterboxes”#PMQs updates: https://t.co/utgDYwGajI pic.twitter.com/CDMQRGJGL8
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) September 4, 2019
‘So rather than hide behind sham and whitewash investigations, when will the prime minister finally apologize for his derogatory and racist remarks?’
Singh requested an inquiry into Islamophobia in the Conservative Party and a nationally televised apology, which the PM had promised. The members applauded.
Johnson did not address Singh’s demands. In 2018, the PM was criticized for calling the burkha “oppressive” and “ridiculous.” Hate crimes against Muslims increased 375 percent the week after the quote was published.
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