Boris Johnson has long taken a swift and direct approach in targeting minorities in the UK. Either intentionally or unwittingly. And it has worked. Scapegoating, sneering and vilifying people of a different colour, race, religion and creed was the season’s latest fashion.
Few were exempt, Johnson overtly attacked the working classes calling them ‘drunk... feckless, criminal’, describing single mothers as ‘ill-raised, ignorant… and aggressive’, Muslim women were depicted as ‘bankrobbers and letterboxes’, Africans, described as ‘flag waving picanninies with watermelon smiles’. The list goes on.
The bumbling Boris, as he is sometimes perceived, created a caricature of himself making his indiscretions tolerable to many. The scapegoating and fearmongering which came with the Brexit referendum has continued with the Windrush scandal, Grenfell and the ongoing vindictive treatment of migrants arriving on our shores seeking sanctuary.
