Suzy Jagger, Politics and Business Correspondent
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The UK Independence Party is to call for a ban on the burka and the niqab — the Islamic cloak that covers women from head to toe and the mask that conceals most of the face — claiming they affront British values. The policy, which a number of European countries are also debating, is an attempt by UKIP to broaden its appeal and address the concerns of disaffected white working-class voters.
UKIP would be the first national party to call for a total ban on burkas, though the far-Right BNP believes they should be banned from schools.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch, the leader of UKIP, said yesterday: “We are taking expert advice on how we could do it. It makes sense to ban the burka — or anything which conceals a woman’s face — in public buildings. But we want to make it possible to ban them in private buildings. It isn’t right that you can’t see someone’s face in an airport.”
He explained that UKIP wanted to bring to the fore the issue of the increasing influence of Sharia in Britain: “We are not Muslim bashing, but this is incompatible with Britain’s values of freedom and democracy.”
Nigel Farage, the former UKIP party leader, will announce tomorrow that the party believes the fabric of the country is under threat from Sharia and that forcing women to conceal their identity in public is not consistent with traditional Britishness.
UKIP believes that the burka and the niqab have no basis in Islam, are a threat to gender equality, marginalise women and endanger the public safety because terrorists could use them to hide their identity.
In the general election, UKIP hopes to build on success at the June European polls when it secured the second-largest share of the vote, more than 16 per cent. It also hopes to win its first Westminster seats.
UKIP has been known primarily as a single-issue Eurosceptic party composed of disaffected Tories. But over the next two months it plans to publish papers on a number of policy areas such as welfare into work, transport, healthcare and tax. Its manifesto will specify policy measures, — a clarity that UKIP says other parties lack.
UKIP has said that it would increase Britain’s military budget by 40 per cent and bring back grammar schools. The party also believes that fewer school leavers should go to university, and that the less academic teenagers should be encouraged to learn a trade. It would also seek to revolutionise teacher training. Lord Pearson said that the current process was “rotten”.
Mr Farage, who stood down last year to fight the Buckingham seat held by John Bercow, Speaker of the Commons, told The Times yesterday: “UKIP has always been good at showing what it is against, but we are now trying to demonstrate to voters how an independent Britain would be governed. I am going to be talking about Britishness, about the national identity and the genuine threat that Sharia law poses. Alarm bells should have sounded when the Archbishop of Canterbury said that the adoption of Sharia law in the UK was unavoidable.”
Two years ago Rowan Williams triggered a row over Sharia when he argued that Britain had to “face up to the fact” that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system and that adopting parts of Islamic law would help to maintain social cohesion. Mr Farage declined to be drawn on a proposed burka ban.
In France, President Sarkozy is trying to outlaw the wearing of full veils on state premises such as university campuses and hospitals, and on public transport. All the main French parties and most of the public are opposed to women wearing full veils but, after six months of parliamentary hearings, it is apparent that a blanket ban would be unworkable and likely to backfire.
Mr Sarkozy wants an all-party consensus to make clear that full veils contradict French principles while avoiding measures that would stigmatise Muslims.
In Denmark, Conservatives in the coalition government have demanded a ban on the burka and the niqab in public. In October 2009 the Muslim Canadian Congress called for a ban on the burka and the niqab, arguing that they have “no basis in Islam”.
Inayat Bunglawala, a spokesman for the Muslim Council for Britain, told The Times: “UKIP is supposed to be proud of Britain’s traditions and values, which include freedom or speech, association and religion.
“The overwhelming majority of women who wear the burka do so out of a sense of religious duty. It is their interpretation of their religion. UKIP have no right to overrule that. It is nobody else’s business.”
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