Suella Braverman has renewed her call for a ban on the burka.
The former Home Secretary, who defected to Reform UK in January, laid out her stance as she issued a warning over integration in Britain.
Mrs Braverman said burkas and niqabs are a bar to integration.
A burka covers the entirety of the face, while the latter leaves a small slit for the eyes.
“I think the burka should be banned in public places,” she told The Sun – and specifically called for a ban in classrooms.
“Britain is not a racist country. We’re not a sexist country. The Equality Act has actually created division,” she said, and warned of another Labour “betrayal” in schools.
Last week, the Education Secretary unveiled new transgender guidance for Britain’s schools which would let young children “socially transition” by changing their pronouns and uniforms.
Mrs Braverman said the move “amounts to a betrayal of children”, many of whom “require a mental health intervention not a surgical intervention”.
“Children are experimenting, they are thinking out loud,” she said. They don’t really know what their identity is. They are still in the stages of development.
Suella Braverman’s call to clamp down on the burka comes nearly nine months after she initially backed the move
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For the authorities… to intervene in very radical, irreversible, life-changing ways is a disgrace.”
Her call to clamp down on the burka comes nearly nine months after she initially backed the move – the day after her future colleague Sarah Pochin did the same in the Commons.
“The burka and niqab are not akin to turbans, yarmulkes, headscarves or motorcycle helmets,” she wrote in The Telegraph. “They are garments of erasure – of identity, of individualism, and of the mutual recognition that life in community demands.”
She added that when she had travelled to the Middle East, she had covered up her shoulders, legs and hair when asked.
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Burkas and niqabs (pictured) are a bar to integration, Mrs Braverman said
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GETTY“Is it so outlandish to expect that those who come to Britain might return the courtesy?” Mrs Braverman said.
“A society that tolerates everything, even its own erosion, will not survive,” she concluded.
Another of her future colleagues, Zia Yusuf, also backed a ban – after initially calling one “dumb” following Ms Pochin’s remarks.
Britain should ban the burka in public because it poses a “huge impediment to assimilation”, he said.
Politicians including the Reform trio have pointed to successful bans in Europe to bolster their case.
Outspoken Australian Senator Pauline Hanson even wore one into the country’s upper chamber to make her point.
Pauline Hanson made headlines after wearing a burka in the Australian Senate | REUTERS
In the last few months alone, both Italy and Portugal have moved to outlaw the garments in public, while calls have also risen for the same in Sweden.
Many of the proponents of a ban – Mrs Braverman, Ms Hanson, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Sweden’s Ebba Busch – are women.
But Labour has so far ruled out a ban.
In response to a popular petition to put one into law, the Government said it was “committed to celebrating and promoting… the huge contribution of people of faith to public life.”
“There is no current legislation that bans the wearing of religious or non-religious face coverings and the Government has no intention to introduce any,” the petition response continued.