Badenoch: I wouldn't ban the burka
Kemi Badenoch has said the Conservatives would not ban the burka under her leadership.
The leader of the opposition said last weekend that bosses should have the right to ban staff from wearing burkas and other face coverings in the workplace.
But she rejected demands for an outright ban on Thursday, arguing it could not be enforced during a prison capacity crisis that has led to the early release of thousands of offenders.
It comes after Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, branded the Islamic full-face veil 'anti-British' and called for a national debate on the issue.
In an interview with the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, Mrs Badenoch insisted she would not allow people who wore face veils into her constituency surgeries.
Asked how many times she had been in that situation, she replied: 'Not frequently, but I have made it very clear. But this is not about whether I like the burka or not.
'This is about what we need to do to make sure that we are a properly integrated society. I don't think women should be forced to wear things that their husbands or their communities want. If you have segregated societies, those things happen.'
She added: 'But what I'm not doing is announcing that I'm going to ban the burka like Reform is doing. Are we going to send police officers into people's homes to check if they're wearing the burka at a time when we can't even keep prisoners in prison, and] we're releasing them?
'Do we have space in prison to put people wearing the burka in there? This is what I mean by people just saying things, announcing policies without plans.'
France became the first European country to ban the burka in public in 2011. Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg and Switzerland have all followed suit.
Mrs Badenoch went on to insist she did not like 'face coverings in general', adding: 'It's balaclavas, it's burkas. We don't need to make it necessarily about religion.
'But integration is absolutely important, it's something that the Conservative Party knows a lot about, and we know how to deliver that.'
Zia Yusuf, the former chairman of Reform, unexpectedly resigned last week after Sarah Pochin, the party's newest MP, asked Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister's Questions whether he supported a ban on the burka.
Sir Keir refused to be drawn on the issue but suggested he would oppose a ban, saying: 'I'm not going to follow her down that line.'
Mr Yusuf has since returned to the fold in a new role, overseeing the 'Doge' efficiency drive and has insisted that he would also support a ban.
Asked about comments by David Bull, the new Reform chairman, that the burka was 'anti-British', Mr Farage replied that he was 'probably right'.
'It probably is anti-British in the sense that [...] I don't know if they're being forced to cover up,' he said.
'That is not a good and positive thing, but is it absolutely front and centre of what we're going to campaign for? Not given the other major crises we face.'
Mr Farage went on to call for a 'much bigger, broader debate' about face coverings, including balaclavas worn by hard-Left activists who have targeted him in the past.
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