Boris Johnson during a general election campaign visit to Diageo’s Roseisle Distillery in Scotland. (Daniel Leal-Olivas – WPA Pool/Getty Images)
“Bum boys against Boris” is the latest campaign from UK queer activist group Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants.
The campaign, which sees the slogan emblazoned on a series of T-shirts, launched this week and calls on Boris Johnson to apologise for the “bigoted language” he previously used against LGBT+ people.
“We want to show the opposition to the dangerous language and policies Boris Johnson is promoting and the violence he is promoting against people from the LGBT+ community and other minorities,” LGSMigrants spokesperson Sam Bjorn told PinkNews.
“We want to show that we as queer people are standing in solidarity with everyone else affected by his bigotry. Therefore we will be donating all the profits from the T-shirts to community groups fighting racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia.”
Boris Johnson ‘bum boys’ comments.
In a 1998 column about the resignation of Peter Mandelson, Johnson made comments referring to gay people as “tank-topped bum boys”.
And in a 2001 book, he suggested that “if gay marriage was OK… then I saw no reason in principle why a union should not be consecrated between three men, as well as two men, or indeed three men and a dog”.
These and other deeply homophobic comments from old columns Johnson wrote during his time as a journalist came to light in January 2018, after he leapt to the defence of Toby Young, the right-wing Spectator columnist who had been controversially appointed to the board of the new Office for Students.
Young was criticised for having referred to George Clooney as “queer as a coot”, calling a man “penis breath” and for having written a column about dressing up as a woman to infiltrate lesbian bars – to meet “hard-core dykes”.
On Twitter, Johnson said: “Ridiculous outcry over Toby Young. He will bring independence, rigour and caustic wit. Ideal man for job.”
Prime Minister Boris.
When Johnson claimed victory in the Conservative leadership election, the LGBT+ Conservatives group joined calls for him to finally apologise for his comments from the 1990s, referring to gay people as “tank-topped bum boys”and attacking “Labour’s appalling agenda, encouraging the teaching of homosexuality in schools.”
LGBT+ campaigners had initiated calls for Johnson to start his time as Prime Minister by finally issuing an apology for his history of anti-LGBT remarks.
Johnson has so far declined to apologise for his comments.
You can buy a “Bum boys against Boris” tee here.