Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Who was Boris Johnson's Muslim great-grandfather?

Boris Johnson's Turkish great-grandfather Ali Kemal with his wife Winifred
Boris Johnson's Turkish great-grandfather Ali Kemal with his wife Winifred
Boris Johnson highlighted his heritage as he defended himself from accusations of Islamophobia last night.
Mr Johnson's great-grandfather was Ali Kemal, a Turkish journalist and politician. 
Ali Kemal was a pro-democracy campaigner under the Ottoman regime, who fled to the UK to avoid persecution in the early 1900s.
He married Winifred Brun, but she died giving birth to their son Wilfred in 1909.
Wilfred was the father of Stanley Johnson, who in turn is the parent of the Tory leadership favourite.
Ali Kemal later returned to Turkey and served as interior minister, but was killed by a lynch mob in 1922 as the war of independence raged. 
When Mr Johnson took part in the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are? programme a decade ago, he discovered that his family had changed the children's names to Johnson - Winifred's mother's surname - probably to avoid them being bullied at school.

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