Islamophobic incidents rose 375% after Johnson compared Muslim women to 'letterboxes', figures show

[Emrys]

Perpetrators abusing Muslim women in the street ‘directly referenced’ MP’s comments, report finds
...
Monitoring group Tell Mama said the Daily Telegraph column written by the now-prime minister was followed by the biggest spike in anti-Muslim hatred in 2018, as his words were repeated by racists abusing Muslims on the street and online.

In the three weeks after the article was published last August, 42 per cent of offline Islamophobic incidents reported “directly referenced Boris Johnson and/or the language used in his column”, a report said.

Many were directed at visibly Muslim women who wore the niqab or other veils, who were called “letterboxes” and “ninjas”.

Online abuse reported to Tell Mama repeated the same words or incorporated them into pictures and memes that were sent to Muslims online.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/boris-johnson-muslim-women-letterboxes-burqa-islamphobia-rise-a9088476.html

This report's from 2019, but in the wake of the "independent" report on race in the UK, this finding will have come as no surprise to many of us, but may serve as a wake-up call to those who ever claimed that Johnson was merely giving vent to a Prince Philipian sense of humour and was simply misunderstood.

[Emrys]

1. Posting this was partly spurred by Johnson's excuse-making for Prince Philip earlier today:

Link to tweet

Adam Bienkov

@AdamBienkov

Boris Johnson defends Prince Philips' racist comments, saying people "understood he was trying to break the ice, to get things moving, to get people laughing."

[Emrys]

2. Here's part of Johnson's "eulogy" to Prince Philip in parliament today:

Link to tweet

Adam Bienkov
@AdamBienkov

Boris Johnson defends Prince Philips' racist comments, saying people "understood he was trying to break the ice, to get things moving, to get people laughing."

💙 Jane 🌠 🌱
@localnotail

These words had no place in a respectful eulogy from a Prime Minister.
Completely inappropriate.
Sadly standard Johnson: national embarrassment.

That quote in full: "Mr Speaker, the world did not hold it against him. On the contrary, they overwhelmingly understood that he was trying to break the ice, to get things moving, to get people laughing and to forget their nerves."

The examples Johnson quotes are far from the worst Philip spouted in his time. Johnson himself has come out with far worse.

Which is why this part of his speech was more about him than about Prince Philip.