Tory peer says Boris Johnson should lose the whip as he continues to defy order to apologise

Pressure on Boris Johnson over his controversial remarks about women in burqas is mounting across the Conservative party a day after the former foreign secretary was rebuked by Theresa May.

A Conservative peer said Johnson should have the whip withdrawn, while a cabinet member called on him to retract his words and use language more carefully, as the row started by the man seen as a possible party leader continued into a third day.



The prime minister criticised Johnson over his claim that Muslim women in burqas resemble letterboxes and bank robbers, urging him to apologise after he defied an order to do so by Tory chiefs.



She said she agreed with the Conservative party chairman, Brandon Lewis, that Johnson should say sorry for his remarks, which she acknowledged had caused offence in the Muslim community.

May urged people to be “very careful” about the language they used to discuss sensitive issues such as women wearing the burqa, but stopped short of saying Johnson’s comments were Islamophobic or that he should lose the Tory whip, meaning he would no longer represent the party in parliament.

All apologies: the many times Boris Johnson has been told to say sorry Read more

Following her intervention, Lord Sheikh, the founder of the Conservative Muslim Forum, set up to encourage British Muslims to get involved in political life, called for the party to withdraw the whip from Johnson.

“Take the whip from him. Why not? He’s not a super human being, he’s a member of the party. The party chairman, the prime minister has the right to take the whip … that’s the thing I’d like to see,” he told the BBC’s Newsnight.

Further pressure was put on the former foreign secretary by the culture secretary, Jeremy Wright, who said Johnson should have chosen his language more carefully.

“When you are discussing a subject such as this, then I think describing it as people looking like letterboxes isn’t helpful. I think we should all choose our language with care,” he told the BBC’s Today programme on Wednesday.

Wright said he was “sure on reflection” that Johnson would want to reconsider the language he had used, but he sidestepped questions over whether the MP should have the whip removed, saying: “That’s not a decision for me.”

Eric Pickles, a former Tory chairman, told Today: “The very sensible thing would be for him to apologise.”

The peer and former communities secretary said he did not understand Johnson’s motives and claimed his comments had closed down the debate on face veils. “There are tensions now that exist within the community, a degree of hatred out there that I’ve not witnessed for a good few years,” he said.

It came as Conservative party chiefs sought to dampen the Islamophobia row that has re-erupted since Johnson’s remarks in response to Denmark’s introduction of a ban on burqas in public places.

Sidestepping the question of whether the former foreign secretary was Islamophobic, May had said: “I have said it’s very clear that anybody who is talking about this needs to think very carefully about the language that they use and the impact that language has had on people, and it is clear that the language that Boris used has offended people.”

May was emphatic that women in the UK ought to be able to choose freely what they wanted to wear. “What is important is do we believe that people have the right to practise their religion, should have the right to choose – in the case of women, and the burqa and the niqab – how they dress,” she said.

“It is absolutely that women should be able to choose how they dress and shouldn’t be told how to do it by other people. And I believe that all of us when we talk about these issues should be very careful about the language that we use.”

May also said: “Some of the terms that Boris used in describing people’s appearance obviously have offended people and so I agree with Brandon Lewis.”

On Tuesday night, Johnson – who is believed to be on holiday in Europe – continued to defy via Twitter Lewis’s order to apologise for his remarks. He is understood to view the instruction as an attempt to shut down debate on a difficult issue that should be tackled head-on.

Brandon Lewis (@BrandonLewis) I agree with @AlistairBurtUK. I have asked @BorisJohnson to apologise. https://t.co/RFExXO4LOR

However, Johnson faced criticism from Tory politicians and Muslim groups for his comments, which some claimed were designed to pander to rightwing voters to bolster his future leadership chances. He came under fire recently for meeting the former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon.

The former Tory chairman Sayeeda Warsi, who has accused Johnson of “dog-whistle” Islamophobia, told Sky News on Tuesday: “Boris knew what he was doing when he made those comments, when he chose to use this very specific language he would know the impact and the effect it would have.”

“I think Boris is making yet another leadership bid and he will do and say whatever needs to be done to make that as successful as he can … I sincerely hope that he doesn’t continue to use Muslim women as a convenient political football to try and increase his poll ratings.”

The Conservative party has been accused of a lack of action on tackling Islamophobia in its ranks after Lewis said in June that diversity training would be offered to all members, and local associations would report back on how complaints were handled.

Before May’s intervention, a number of Tory MPs had criticised Johnson’s remarks. Alistair Burt, the minister for the Middle East, who worked under him, described them as offensive and said he would never have said anything similar.

He told the BBC that Johnson had been defending Muslim women’s right to wear the religious dress. But he added: “I would never have made such a comment. I think there is a degree of offence in that, absolutely right.”

Fiyaz Mughal, the founder of Tell Mama, which campaigns against anti-Muslim violence, said Johnson’s comments amounted to Islamophobia.

“These are the kind of comments we have seen that have been made by extremist far-right groups and people who have been maliciously attacking Muslims, so clearly it does fit that bracket,” he said.

The shadow equalities minister, Naz Shah, said: “Boris Johnson’s comments were not just offensive, they were Islamophobic, but the prime minister is in denial. An apology is not enough, she needs to order an independent inquiry into Islamophobia in her party, as requested by the Muslim community, and take action against him.”

Shazia Awan-Scully, a former Tory parliamentary candidate, accused Johnson of “pandering to the extreme right”, comparing his comments to Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech, and said he should be sacked.

“If you cast your mind back 50 years to when Enoch Powell gave his rivers of blood speech, he was sacked from the shadow cabinet immediately,” she told Newsnight.

In his column for the Telegraph on Monday, Johnson said Muslim women wearing burqas looked like bank robbers, and schools and universities should be entitled to tell students to remove them.

He said it was “absolutely ridiculous” that wearers should “go around looking like letterboxes”, and he would expect his constituents to remove them in his MP’s surgery.

However, Johnson said he did not support a blanket ban on the face veil in the UK. “You risk turning people into martyrs, and you risk a general crackdown on any public symbols of religious affiliation, and you may simply make the problem worse,” he wrote.