It's a shame Boris Johnson never consulted Muslim women before speaking on our behalf

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'If Johnson wanted to protect freedom of choice, then I am afraid he has done no favours to this cause' (Getty)

I have spent a pleasant weekend hosting guests and visitors to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community’s annual convention in Hampshire. As I drove visitors across the site and showed them the facilities, run and organised by women to cater for 15,000 female guests, a thought struck me.

From my golf buggy, I could point out female lawyers, teachers, doctors, surgeons, female PhDs, housewives, students, nurses, CEOs, project managers – there was no end to the talents available, and all contained in a few fields of rural England.

These women belong to a community that advocates the wearing of the veil. Many of them will wear a niqab and nobody has bullied them into doing so. They are all intelligent, educated, confident women working and serving local and national communities in too many ways to count.

I only wish Boris Johnson had consulted us before writing his article in The Telegraph. We would have been able to correct his views – most letterboxes don’t talk. We would have explained that covering the face is mentioned in the Holy Quran. We would have told him that the burka is not a barrier to integration.

What a shame he decided to speak on our behalf. What a shame he thought we needed his intervention to save us from making our own choices about our own clothes. We would have politely explained that in our wonderful diverse and tolerant Britain, we have the freedom to choose how we dress. Perhaps next time, before calling us weird and ridiculous, he could actually ask us what we think.

Sarah Khan
London, SW2

I’m appalled by Johnson’s comments on the niqab being compared to a “letterbox”. As an Ahmadi Muslim woman who has chosen to wear a hijab, I find this comment to be utterly offensive. A Muslim woman, or any woman, has the right to wear what she pleases. Why does the media consistently target Muslim women who wish to wear the Islamic dress? It’s not the place of the government to ban Islamic or any religious clothing.

Surely Denmark should focus on pressing issues such as climate change, pollution and the gender pay gap.

It’s a woman’s choice to decide how she wishes to cover herself. And as Johnson isn’t a woman, I think it’s best for him to not speak on behalf of women, especially if he can’t do so respectfully.

Nadia Rehman​
Kingston

Tory MPs, it’s time to do more than just tweet your disapproval

As pro-European, one-nation Tories, you have shown great bravery fighting the government on Brexit and you have put up with appalling abuse from the media and some of your colleagues on the back benches. Some of you have received death threats from social media trolls. These are things that nobody in public life should have to put up with.

But surely Boris Johnson’s comments about women wearing the hijab should signal that your political home has left you and dumped your possessions in the drive. If Boris continues to serve as an MP and doesn’t apologise for his remarks today, then you should leave your party on principle.

Tweeting about how much you disagree with him is simply not enough. When hate crime against Muslims is up by 40 per cent in a year in London, it is time to take a stand and send a clear message to the country that such Islamophobic language is totally unacceptable.

Chris Key
Twickenham

Johnson does not represent me

I am 28 years old and I wear the niqab as a Muslim woman, and hence cover parts of my face, as per the teachings of the Quran. I have been wearing the hijab since my early teens, when I was attending secondary school and college. Then I continued to wear the niqab at university and whilst I was working as a professional at an NHS hospital.

Whilst trying to protect burqa wearing Muslim women, Boris Johnson has demeaned and mocked them by referring to them as oppressed or bullied. Let me assure him that I for one am neither oppressed, bullied nor coerced into wearing the niqab. The truth is that my niqab has empowered and liberated me at every step of my life.

In fact, I feel Johnson’s labelling me a “letterbox” and “bank robber” is not just a personal attack; rather it is an attack on freedom of expression and choice. His words violate my basic human rights of freedom of religion and choice.

If Johnson wanted to protect freedom of choice, then I am afraid he has done no favours to this cause. As the former foreign secretary of our great nation, he has failed to represent my views as a practising British Muslim woman.

I wish to also say that my faith and religion are not rigid, but are perfect, practical in all situations and easy to follow. For instance if there are any security concerns, or if the government and authorities wish to check the identification of burqa wearing women then most certainly Muslim women should comply to their requests.

Samina Yasmeen Arif​
Liphook

Muslim women have been given all kinds of dubious accolades – oppressed, backward, subservient and inferior – we have heard them all. And just when we thought these couldn’t get any worse than they already are, Boris Johnson – in an ironic attempt to disagree with Denmark’s burqa ban – referred to Muslim women in burqas as “letterboxes” and “bank robbers”. That his comments were distasteful and completely tactless is without doubt. They were also profoundly ignorant and bigoted. I mean, would Johnson refer to an orthodox Christian nun as the same?

Johnson’s offensive tirade is disappointing and unacceptable on many levels. It breaches the political gravitas required of a statesman in his position, tasked by the people to uphold their democratic ideals. It inverts these democratic values and liberty – by robbing Muslim women of the dignity and self-respect they rightfully deserve as human beings, regardless of how they choose to dress.

Such corrosive rhetoric in fact, is paving the way towards the civilisational divide Johnson so ironically warns us of, were a burqa ban to be enforced. And alongside calling out Johnson for his highly inappropriate remarks, the mainstream media too must be called out and held to account for publishing discourse that seeks to incite racial division and hatred among communities. Surely journalistic and political values are better than this.

Ayesha Malik
Surrey

A lot of good comes from EU laws

I do think that there is a much-distorted view of the level of serious impact EU laws have on our daily lives. For example, the ban on smoking in public places and awarding Blue Flag status to improve our beaches are but two good examples of EU directives. The EU does not dictate, for example, what we teach in our schools and never has, nor has it told us what side of the road we should drive on, or how much we should eat or drink. Given that we have one of the highest levels of obesity in Europe, which in itself puts a strain on our NHS for all manner of related illnesses, then perhaps it ought to!

Furthermore there are plenty of non-EU bodies, such as the Geneva Convention, the UN, NATO and various agreements on the environment such as Kyoto Protocol, which control different areas of our lives with a view to keeping us safer and healthier. Perhaps we should ask, are we happy about that? And surely that’s the point isn’t it? Not who is telling us what to do but whether the law or directive that’s in place is one that’s there to protect us, to try and improve the quality of our lives and to remind us that we are not on our own but that we belong to the wider community of the world we live in.

Clare Park
St Helens

Plenty of remainers vote for their MEP and feel more European than British

In answer to a letter from C Holt, I am one of the 48 per cent and yes I did vote for my MEP, of which there are seven representing the south east, including Nigel Farage – not that I voted for him! My great grandfather was French, my husband’s great grandmother was from Alsace Lorraine. My daughter is married to a Frenchman, my son’s long-term partner comes from Vienna. I am 60 years old and have felt European for as long as I have been politically aware, and like many others, I woke up the morning of the referendum result with a sense of disbelief and immense sadness.

I frequently watch Euronews – the world weather and temperatures are particularly interesting/worrying at the moment – as I find the BBC parochial and sport obsessed. I have been seriously making an effort to get beyond school-level French for the last few years. If it wasn’t for my husband having early-onset Alzheimer’s, and my elderly parents – as well as needing to work for another six years – I would be thinking seriously about emigrating, if France would have me. However I do now think we are going to have to leave because the only way the slim majority who want to leave are going to realise how painful it is to shoot themselves in the foot, will be to experience it and suffer the consequences.

Sarah Macrae
Petersfield