© Reuters/Peter NichollsUK PM Boris Johnson
The erroneous and now-corrected video was posted on Twitter by Channel 4 and showed Johnson answering questions at a factory in Derbyshire while on the campaign trail ahead of the UK general election.
Channel 4 quoted him as saying: "I am in favour of having people of colour come to this country but I think we should have it democratically controlled," despite him actually saying "people of talent."
Channel 4 has since deleted the video and issued an apology, tweeting: "Boris Johnson says 'people of talent' not 'people of colour.' Our earlier tweet was a mistake. We misheard and we apologise."
Online reaction to the blunder was swift and relentless. "It's clear he said 'talent' and you'd only be led to believe Boris said colour if you'd been guided to believe so by the incorrect subtitles. This is absolutely bloody outrageous from Channel 4, once again," conservative commentator Darren Grimes tweeted.
The clip ensnared a few high profile politicians, who were ready to believe that Johnson had made another questionable remark. Labour's Shadow Trade Secretary Barry Gardiner described it as an "extraordinary slip of the Johnson mask" having apparently missed the correction and apology by Channel 4.
"'I've just re-listened to the clip multiple times and it sounds very much like he said 'colour,'" Lib Dem candidate Chuka Umunna reportedly tweeted before subsequently deleting the post. "This is a man with form and now he's asking us all for the benefit of the doubt. Why on earth should we give it to him after the various racist things he has said?"
LBC's James O'Brien called out Channel 4 and the hordes of online reactionaries furiously tweeting about the imagined racism, saying that the broadcaster dropped a "fairly hefty clanger" and that the "Twitter mob have got this horribly wrong on this occasion."
Prime Minister Johnson has repeatedly been accused of racism over a number of controversial remarks he has written in newspaper columns over the years, including comparing women dressed in the burka to letterboxes. He also previously referred to people from Africa as "crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies" with "watermelon smiles," though he claimed those remarks were taken out of context.
Reader Comments
Most of the immigrants moving to the UK out of other EU countries are racially indistinguishable from the Brits.
It is the UK's own policies (NOT influenced by the EU) that have opened the floodgates to "non-white" immigrants from the former colonies. And, from what I can tell from here across the pond, neither side has non-EU immigration control very high on their priority lists.
Going back a bit....
I don't think the original Brexit vote was about immigration or race. I think it was more of a protest vote against Cameron.
Mainly due to the complete lack of creative thought amongst the British political class, it seems we only do protest votes these days. Everyone votes tactically, i.e. negatively, and you can see that in all the election communiques that come through my door. It's all... "Stop Brexit!!!", "Stop Corbyn!!!", "Stop The Tories!!!", etc. No one ever actually votes "for" anything.
In the last three years the so-called leftist media and The Labour Party have set up a scenario where the white working class are a pariah who must always display sufficient good manners to yield to the machinations of the "caring" bourgeois left. As per the failed Hillary Clinton campaign of a few years ago, the "race", "racist" stick has been wielded one too many times and I think blowback may occur in that regard.
The situation is complex, but if the whole of South Yorkshire votes Tory, you'll know something like that has gone down.
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