‘Apologise for Racist Remarks’: British Sikh MP to Boris Johnson

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi made a passionate speech about enduring racism while growing up in Britain.

In this handout photo provided by the House of Commons, Labour MP Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, was applauded after challenging Prime Minister Boris Johnson to apologize for comparing Muslim women who wear face-covering veils to “letter boxes.”

(Photo: AP)

Britain's first turbaned Sikh MP, Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, on Wednesday, 4 September, demanded that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson apologise for racist remarks against Muslim women in the past.

In a fiery intervention during Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs) in the House of Commons, Dhesi attracted applause from fellow Opposition Labour party MPs as he made a passionate speech about enduring such attacks related to his turban while growing up in Britain.

"For those of us who, from a young age, have had to endure and face up to being called names such as towelhead or Taliban, or to people saying we come from bongo, bongo land, we can appreciate full well the hurt and pain felt by already vulnerable Muslim women when they are described as looking like bank robbers and letterboxes," said Dhesi, in reference to Johnson's column in The Daily Telegraph' newspaper last year.

“So rather than hide behind sham and whitewash investigations, when will the Prime Minister finally apologise for his derogatory and racist remarks? Those racist remarks have led to a spike in hate crime.”

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, British MP

Monitoring group Tell MAMA [Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks] had unveiled research earlier this week which claimed that Islamophobic incidents rose by 375 per cent in the week after Johnson's references to the burqa as "oppressive" in the newspaper column.

"If you tell me that the burka [burqa] is oppressive, then I am with you I would go further and say that it is absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes," he wrote at the time.

Dhesi also challenged the British prime minister to order an investigation into alleged Islamophobia within his own Conservative Party.

Johnson responded by claiming that Dhesi had failed to read his newspaper article within its complete context, which was in fact a strong liberal defence of everybody's right to wear whatever they want.

He also declared he had Sikh relatives -- in an obvious reference to his estranged wife, Marina Wheeler, whose mother Dip Kaur is of Sikh origin.

Johnson said in his response: I speak as somebody who is proud not only to have Muslim ancestors, but to be related to Sikhs like him.

“I am also proud to say that, under this government, we have the most diverse Cabinet in the history of this country. We truly reflect modern Britain.”

Boris Johnson, prime minister of the UK

The British prime minister called on the Labour Party to address its own problems with anti-semitism, a reference to numerous allegations of anti-Jewish incidents with the Opposition party.