KCL Think Tank withdraw invitation for Boris Johnson to speak at university

Boris Johnson has been formally uninvited to speak at King’s College London after comments made regarding Barack Obama’s Kenyan heritage in the Brexit debate.

In a BBC interview on Friday, Boris criticized the President’s decision to remove the bust of Churchill from the White House before saying: “I think, because of his grandfather and Kenya and colonisation, Obama bears a bit of a grudge against this country”.

The mayor of London was originally invited to speak by the King’s College London Think Tank to contribute to the Brexit series that is set to run at the university from the 20th April – 12th May.

The email, which was sent to Boris late last week, outlined disagreements with how the Mayor of London had spoken about Obama in his BBC interviews and said:

“Given your inappropriate comments and inferences towards President Obama’s Kenyan heritage, of which he is rightly proud, and your general tone of disrespect over the past few days in relation to the President of the USA, we are now formally withdrawing your invitation to speak at King’s College London.

“We are looking forward to providing a forum for both sides in the EU referendum debate to argue their point of view without fear or favour

“The level of discourse over the past few days does not meet the bar we set for these events nor do we feel that it help the British people in making the most momentous decision of our lifetime.

“Furthermore we believe it does not reflect the true greatness of the United Kingdom, a land of tolerance, respect and fair play towards us all.”

First year History student, Karl said: “None one of us would dare mention that Boris is himself part Turkish. That would not be strictly relevant to anything significant.”

Undergrad, Jamie Morley added: “I don’t think we should un-invite him, just challenge him about it after the talk.”

You can hear Margot Macdonnell speak further abut the decision to withdraw Boris Johnson’s invitation on Radio 4.