The Tory leadership contest is in full swing.
We’re over a week into the contest, with ten MPs competing to take over from Theresa May and likely have their careers impaled by Brexit. Oh what fun!
Tory grandee Boris Johnson officially launched his campaign yesterday. Though over the course of the campaign, the past actions and comments of many of the hopefuls have resurfaced.
Michael Gove has been grilled for admitting his past use of cocaine, Esther McVey and Lorraine Kelly are mortal enemies and Dominic Raab has been criticised for his past comments on gender pay equality. It's been eventful.
Johnson has also faced (and dodged) questions about his alleged drug use.
But it's resurfaced comments he made in a newspaper column for The Telegraph about Muslim women that are garnering the most attention. At the time Johnson compared Muslim women who wear the Burqa to “letterboxes”, and was widely criticised for being "Islamophobic”. His remarks were also correlated with a rise in violent crime against Muslim women.
Those critics of Johnson have now been rebuked by one of his chief supporters: Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg who has stepped forward to brand the people that offended as "snowflakes."
People weren't were quite rightly a little bit annoyed about Rees-Mogg mocking them for being offended by something they perceived as racist.
Rees-Mogg standing up for Boris Johnson’s right to be Islamophobic and using the far right rhetoric of “snowflakes”… https://t.co/2v1U2VCPIV— marcus 🇧🇧 (@marcus 🇧🇧) 1560408570
I’ve had enough of crap like this. My constituent wasn’t a snowflake when a guy tried to rip her hijab off on Oxfor… https://t.co/ns3OOVOggh— Wes Streeting MP (@Wes Streeting MP) 1560376139
@wesstreeting Dangerous talk cost's lives. Some people will take this as licence.— Rory Flowers#FBPE (@Rory Flowers#FBPE) 1560379731
@wesstreeting Totally ageee this is dangerous— Cllr Ed Fordham (he/him) (@Cllr Ed Fordham (he/him)) 1560410193
So what he means is he is a massive racist begging for laughs. https://t.co/urvzjefgqv— Jess Phillips MP (@Jess Phillips MP) 1560343855
If you don’t like bullying because of empathy & think, because of empathy (not high empathy levels, just normal one… https://t.co/w16YdEzcnP— richard bacon (@richard bacon) 1560399816
Every single person who uses the word ‘snowflake’ disparagingly is higher on the racism spectrum (and the cliche sp… https://t.co/4I2NM3x7nU— richard bacon (@richard bacon) 1560400029
We actually live in an age where politicians, elected politicians are calling people snowflakes. So according to t… https://t.co/piyw4Qzl7x— Dan Lewis ☭ (@Dan Lewis ☭) 1560410352
I’m a fairly robust person. Nothing much offends me, but some things make me angry. Racism makes me angry. Leadi… https://t.co/7v1d0A9OYf— Wolfie. Cult member 1312. 💙🧡💚 (@Wolfie. Cult member 1312. 💙🧡💚) 1560410736
"People mustn't be snowflakes" says malignant, attenuated mantis who hides his grotesque politics, relentless privi… https://t.co/JuISVty6Rh— Russ Jones (@Russ Jones) 1560367419