By Ben Kerrigan-
Boris Johnson’s former aid should defend the charge of racism against him instead of a Conservative Spokesperson making reference to apologies he made about the comments.
A former aide to Boris Johnson is under pressure to step down as an election candidate after Labour accused him of “disgusting racism” in relation to past articles he wrote.
Labour Mps have gone on the attack over his past writings that blamed immigrants for bringing germs and HIV to the UK and accused Muslims of having divided loyalties. Prime minister, Boris Johnson was asked to personally intervene to stop Anthony Browne from contesting the seat of South Cambridgeshire, saying his writings from 2002 and 2003 were “shocking” and “despicable”.
The articles in question were written in the Spectator in 2003. He wrote: “It is not through letting in terrorists that the government’s policy of mass migration – especially from the third world – will claim the most lives. It is through letting in too many germs.”
He also suggested that “curbing the influx of HIV immigrants” would be a better public health approach to tackling HIV than telling people to wear condoms.
Critics have in particular made reference to a book by Browne, Do We Need Mass Immigration?, attributes a catalogue of social ills and health problems to immigration. In one sentence he says : “The fact that African immigration has overtaken gay sex as the main cause of HIV in Britain is a sign that Europe can no longer ignore the entirely preventable Aids holocaust consuming the continent next door. But the solution is to treat the majority where they live, rather than the small number who can make it to Britain to access HIV treatment on the NHS.”
In a passage about Muslim leaders warning the Iraq war could cause social unrest, he wrote: “Whatever the merits or demerits of war on Iraq, it is hardly a national strength to have a large minority with such divided loyalties during war.”
Browne has in the past responded to some of the comments when he became a policy director when Johnson was mayor of London, saying he had gone through a “phase of being deliberately contrary and deliberately provocative”.
He said at the time: “I do very much regret any offence caused by any past newspaper articles. It really never was my intention to cause offence, but to provoke debate. The articles, which I deeply regret writing, also don’t give a fair reflection of my views. I want to make clear that I am emphatically not anti-immigration.”
At the present moment he has not responded to requests for comments, meaning he feels either accepts blame or he does not want to risk saying things that could make things worse. It is important that he defends his position, especially if he feels he had good reasons to make those comments, if they were based on facts he had obtained from a reliable source.