Watch: Sikh UK MP Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi calls out PM Boris Johnson’s racism in parliament
‘When will the prime minister finally apologise for his derogatory and racist remarks?’
A speech by Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, a Sikh parliamentarian from Slough in the United Kingdom, has gone viral on social media. In his address, Dhesi called out the current UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson for his racist remarks against Muslim women when he called them “letterboxes and bank robbers”.
“Mr Speaker, if I decide to wear a turban, or if you decide to wear a cross, or he decides to wear a kippah or a skullcap, or she decides to wear a hijab or a burqa, does that mean it is open season for right honourable members of this House to make derogatory and divisive remarks about our appearance?” Dhesi said during his address in the parliament. “We can appreciate full well the hurt and the pain felt by already vulnerable Muslim women when they are described as looking like bank robbers and letter boxes,” the parliamentarian added, in a direct attack on Johnson.
Dhesi also called for the UK prime minister to apologise for his remarks, inspiring a round of applause in the House.