A prominent muslim leader has said he will quit the Conservative party after 36 years of membership if Boris Johnson becomes prime minister.
The Conservative Muslim Forum chairman also compared Johnson’s popularity to Adolf Hitler’s while being interviewed on BBC Radio 4′s Today programme.
Mohammed Amin blasted the Tory leadership frontrunner for not having the “basic morality and integrity” to lead the country.
“There are many horrible people who have been popular. Popularity is not the test,” he said. “The test is, ‘is this person sufficiently moral to be Prime Minister’. And I believe he fails that test.”
In response presenter Martha Kearney said that many Tory MPs believe he’s the right man to sort Brexit out, Amin replied: “A lot of Germans thought that Hitler was the right man for them.”
Told that was a shocking comparison he added: “Yes. I’m not saying Boris Johnson wants to send people to the gas chamber. Clearly he doesn’t, he’s a buffoon.
“But he as far as I’m concerned has insufficient concern about the nature of truth for me to ever be a member of a party that he leads.”
The former foreign secretary has a history of making racially inflammatory remarks – including describing Muslim women wearing the veil as looking like “letter-boxes” and “bank robbers” in a controversial newspaper column.
Referring to this, Amin said Johnson would have known the comments could lead to muslim women being harassed on the street.
“Mr Johnson is a very intelligent man and when he wrote his article ... he knew exactly what effect it would have.
“It would lead to Muslim women, who wear niqab and burqa, being verbally abused on the streets, in certain cases being physically assaulted with people trying to tear it off.”
He told the BBC: “I’ve been a Conservative Party member for over 36 years. And we don’t expect our politicians, our Prime Ministers, to be saints. But we do require a basic level of morality and integrity.
“And of all the candidates in the Conservative Party leadership election, Boris Johnson is the only one I believe fails that test.
“And I’m not prepared to be a member of a party that chooses him as its leader. I would resign after 36 years.”
Johnson is leading the race to become the Conservative party leader and prime minister after the first round of voting.
His nearest rival Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, was in second place with 43 votes to Johnson’s 114, with Michael Gove, the environment secretary, in third place on 37.