Badenoch says organisations should be able to decide if staff can wear burkas
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has said employers should be able to decide if their staff can wear burkas in the workplace.
Ms Badenoch also said people who come to her constituency surgeries must remove their face coverings “whether it’s a burka or a balaclava”.
Ms Badenoch posted a video on X of part of her interview with the Telegraph, in which she said: “My view is that 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.”
Face coverings
Ms Badenoch continues: “I personally have strong views about face coverings.
“If you come into my constituency surgery, you have to remove your face covering, whether it’s a burka or a balaclava.
“I’m not talking to people who are not going to show me their face.
“Organisations should be able to decide what their staff wear for instance, it shouldn’t be something that people should be able to override.”
She added that France has a ban and has “worse problems than we do in this country on integration”.
On Wednesday, Reform’s newest MP Sarah Pochin asked Sir Keir Starmer during Prime Minister’s Questions whether he would support such a ban.
Discussion
Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice said his party has “triggered a national discussion”.
Asked if he wants to ban burkas, Mr Tice told GB News on Sunday: “We’ve triggered a national discussion. I’m very concerned about them (burkas).
“Frankly, I think they are repressive. I think that they make women second-class citizens.
“We’re a Christian nation. We have equality between the sexes, and I’m very concerned, and if someone wants to convince me otherwise, well come and talk to me.
“But at the moment, my view is that I think we should follow seven other nations across Europe that have already banned them.”
He called for a debate on the topic to “hear where the country’s mood is”.
Meanwhile, shadow home secretary Chris Philp said “employers should be allowed to decide whether their employees can be visible or not”, when discussing face coverings.
Biggest issue
Asked on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme if the Conservative Party’s position is not to speak to people who cover their face, Mr Philp said of Mrs Badenoch: “Well she was talking specifically about her constituency surgery I think, and it is definitely the case that employers should be allowed to decide whether their employees can be visible or not.
“But I don’t think this is necessarily the biggest issue facing our country right now.
“There’s a legitimate debate to have about the burka.
“You’ve got, obviously, arguments about personal liberty and choice and freedom on one side, and arguments about causing divisions in society and the possibility of coercion on the other.
“That is a debate I think we as a country should be having, but as Kemi said, it’s probably not the biggest issue our nation faces today.”
Asked if he would talk to people who would not show their face, the Croydon South MP said: “I have in the past spoken to people obviously wearing a burka – I represent a London constituency – but everybody can make their own choices, that’s the point she was making, each employer should be able to make their own choices.”
Support our Nation today
For the price of a cup of coffee a month you can help us create an independent, not-for-profit, national news service for the people of Wales, by the people of Wales.
BadEnoch should wind her neck in and stop racist dogs whistles.
We have a few laws in this land, we don’t need them removing because Vance told her to.
Most Muslim women I know wear what they choose to wear and what they feel comfortable in and not what a man tells them to wear. Yet another islamaphobic politician making their mark and putting up yet another barrier themselves.
I see Plaid Cymru have now entered the Burka spat between Reform and the Conservatives. They’ve issued an urgent statement.
“There a no plans for a Welsh Government to ban English people turning up on our wonderful beaches wearing knotted handkerchiefs on their heads. Despite this headgear being a crass violation of our cultural norms and traditions and a marked increase in the number of English people turning up wearing this offensive headgear, particularly northerners.”
English person.
A Plaid Cymru government have no plans to ban them.
Fabulous. You made my day.
Nicely done. It reminds me of ‘Carry on abroad’ which depicts snotrag headed Brits demanding fish and chips and rejecting the local ‘muck’ on the menu. Almost as embarrassing as Farage, Widdecombe and Co turning their backs and waving their Jacks in the EU Parliament.
Tice, Badenoch, Philp – all members of one combined race hate driving mob which is the purpose of all of their worthless ramblings. It is to keep their followers’ brains boiled and to keep them primed to take action which they will then deny responsibility for. Tice unwisely, or deliberately, used the word ‘triggered’.
She should go much further and ban Movember. I can’t recognise anyone sporting an improbable handlebar moustache. It’s a huge annual national security threat.
They hand out very valid reasons for Wales to step out of this toxic Union every day.