Boris Johnson cleared over ‘satirical joke’ comparing women in burkas to ‘bank robbers’ and letterboxes

BORIS Johnson has been cleared for likening women in burkas to bank robbers and letterboxes.

A disciplinary panel said he was fully entitled to use “satire” to make his point.

Tory party chairman Brandon Lewis had demanded the former Foreign Secretary apologise for comments made in a Daily Telegraph column in August.

But an independent panel, chaired by Naomi Ellenbogen QC, ruled he did not break the Conservatives’ code of conduct. It is understood to have found he was “respectful and tolerant”.

It also said it would be “unwise to censor excessively the language of party representatives or the use of satire to emphasise a viewpoint”.

Mr Johnson had said he expected women to remove face coverings at his surgery. Universities should be able to do the same if a student looks “like a bank robber”, he wrote.

A friend of Mr Johnson’s told the Telegraph: “Perhaps Mr Lewis will now do the honourable thing and apologise to Boris with the same zeal he shamelessly used to smear his name during the summer.”

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