There is growing debate in the UK about a so-called ‘burqa ban’ with Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch accused of pandering to the far-right on the issue.
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has caused outrage in the UK after saying she refuses to speak to constituents visiting her surgery who wear a niqab.
Badenoch said visitors to her constituency office must remove face coverings, stating that she refuses to speak to them unless they do so.
There has been a growing controversy in the UK over the issue of Muslim face coverings, with Reform’s chairman Zia Yusuf briefly quitting the party over a debate on banning the niqab in public places and the right of employers to forbid the face covering in the workplace.
“If you come into my constituency surgery, you have to remove your face covering, whether it’s a burka or a balaclava,” Badenoch told The Telegraph.
“I’m not talking to people who are not going to show me their face, and I also believe that other people should have that control.”
Badenoch said British bosses should also be given the option of whether to ban the niqab at work, saying she had “strong views about face coverings”.
“People should be allowed to wear whatever they want, not what their husband is asking them to wear or what their community says that they should wear,” she said.
The comments indicate a rightwards shift from the Conservative Party – one of the UK’s two main parties – on the issue of the niqab, with Muslim groups accusing her of pandering to Reform UK voters, although she also appeared to rule out a so-called ‘burqa ban’ in the country.
“France has a ban and they have worse problems than we do in this country on integration. So banning the burka clearly is not the thing that’s going to fix things,” she said.
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The issue of the niqab has been front-page news this week, after the chairman of Reform UK briefly quit the right-wing populist party over calls by one of their MPs for a ‘burqa ban’ in the UK.
Reform UK MP Sarah Pochin asked Prime Minister Keir Starmer last week whether he would consider following Denmark and France in banning the niqab in public.
Former Tory Prime Minister Boris Johnson previously used language deemed racist and inflammatory when comparing women wearing the niqab to “letter boxes”, but also condemned Denmark’s so-called ‘burka ban’.
Former Home Secretary Jack Straw also sparked outrage when, in 2006, he said he asked women visiting his office to remove their niqabs, but also said it was their right to choose what to wear.
There are divisions among Muslim scholars about whether the Quran states women should cover their faces.
