Face time? The pros and cons of burqa bans

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 at Church House and the Abbey Centre, Westminster, on Saturday 18 October.

ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION

When Sarah Pochin used her first parliamentary question as a new Reform Party MP to ask about banning the burqa, she reignited a longstanding, smouldering issue. The issue is nothing if not controversial. From France’s 2010 prohibition on face-covering veils in public, to similar legislation in Denmark, Austria and Belgium, laws banning the burqa or niqab have become European flashpoints for debates about freedom, feminism, multiculturalism and social cohesion.

Some proponents of a ban in the UK, such as Pochin, argue it is ‘in the interests of public safety’ to ban an article of clothing which is ‘offensive to British culture’. They also see the veil as an obstacle to integration, a threat to British identity that allows ethno-religious enclaves to develop by encouraging immigrants not to integrate. For some, the burqa seems to embody a visceral symbol of certain migrant communities’ alienation and separation from British norms, frequently visible on British streets.

Others, especially women’s rights campaigners, focus on the burqa as inherently misogynistic, forcing women to cover their faces around men. Therefore, a ban would be an act of liberation in the fight for women’s equality.

Critics of a ban, however, are unconvinced. They see such measures as state overreach, swapping one form of control for another under the banner of women’s liberation. Many women wear the niqab or burqa voluntarily, seeing it not as subjugation but as a statement of devotion or privacy. And where coercion does exist, they argue, empowerment will more likely come through education and dialogue, not prohibition. To them, compelling a woman to unveil is as intrusive as compelling her to cover up. Some argue such a ban singles out Muslim women for special scrutiny, framing cultural difference as a threat, fostering resentment rather than cohesion.

More generally, the principle of freedom is at stake – especially women’s freedom – to choose their dress, faith and identity.  As Boris Johnson controversially said in 2018, ‘it is absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes… [but with a ban] you risk a general crackdown on any public symbols of religious affiliation’.

Is the issue as binary as sometimes heated rows suggest? Even those who feel squeamish about a ban worry about a practice that prevents face-to-face interactions, upon which open societies depend. For the public square to act as a place of genuine exchange and human connection, and civil society to function openly, some suggest a third way of temporary restrictions in places as varied as schools, hospitals or banks.

Is the burqa a threat to British identity or an important aspect of tolerance in a pluralistic, democratic society? Does legislating the boundaries of cultural expression risk hardening difference instead of fostering cohesion? Which side best serves women’s freedom? When values clash – security, equality, cohesion, freedom – which should take priority?

SPEAKERS
Josie Appleton
director, civil liberties group, Manifesto Club; author, Officious: Rise of the Busybody State; writer, Notes on Freedom

Faika El-Nagashi
director, Athena Forum; political scientist; former MP (Austria)

Khadija Khan
journalist and broadcaster; editor, A Further Inquiry; co-host, A Further Inquiry podcast

Ralph Leonard
author, Unshackling Intimacy: Letters on Liberty; contributor, UnHerd, Quillette, New Statesman and Sublation Magazine

CHAIR
Dr James Panton
deputy head welfare, St Edwards School, Oxford; associate lecturer in philosophy, The Open University