Boris Johnson saying dumb things is not a particularly rare occurrence, but now he’s made some particularly weird comments about Barack Obama. The US President is in the UK to lend his support to the campaign to stay in the UK, and Boris — a vocal proponent of leaving the EU —has commented that Obama may dislike Britain because he’s “part Kenyan”.
Writing a column for The Sun, Johnson recounts a rumoured story about Obama removing a bust of Winston Churchill from the White House. The story has actually been disproven — the White House confirmed that it was just moved to a different part of the building in 2012. But in Johnson column, he alluded to Obama’s Kenyan heritage giving him a dislike of Britain, due to it’s colonial history.
Johnson wrote:
No one was sure whether the President had himself been involved in the decision. Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan President’s ancestral dislike of the British empire – of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender.
Let’s not sugar-coat anything — there’s a lot to be ashamed about in the history of the British empire. And bringing up Obama’s African heritage is also contentious, even if Boris doesn’t mean anything by it. The column has attracted criticism for mentioning it from the likes of Labour MPs Yvette Cooper and Chuka Umunna.
[via The Guardian]
