I’ll own it: I probably fit someone’s definition of an Islamophobe. Not because I believe all Muslims are dangerous — far from it — but because I have a rational fear of a global belief system with a political wing. Call it Islamism-phobia, if you like.
A healthy suspicion of all religions seems fair. And it’s undeniable that wherever Islam informs governance, women are routinely treated as second-class citizens. That alone makes me fiercely protective of the flawed, creaking systems that — at least for now — safeguard our freedoms here in the UK. I expect those time-honoured structures to protect everyone equally, placing shared humanity above religious faith or ideology.
Even so, when Reform MP Sarah Pochin asked during Prime Minister’s Questions whether Britain should follow some of our European neighbours in banning the burqa, I felt a flicker of unease.
What unsettled me wasn’t the proposal — it was the justification. Pochin framed the issue as one of “national security,” rather than what it really should be: women’s emancipation. The right to move freely without being forced to vanish beneath a shroud to avoid provoking male desire.
The practice long predates Islam and cuts across patriarchal cultures
That’s the core logic of veiling: respectable women hide their hair with hijabs, their mouths with niqabs, or their entire bodies with burqas. Those who don’t? They’re “asking for it.” It’s a dangerous inversion of responsibility: men’s actions are excused, women are blamed — and expected to prevent their own abuse by vanishing from public view.
The practice long predates Islam and cuts across patriarchal cultures. In ancient Assyria, prostituted and enslaved women were forbidden from veiling. In Rome, respectable wives covered their heads to signal submission to their husband’s will. Today, the full burqa is a political symbol — Islamism in fabric form. That doesn’t mean every woman who wears one is making a statement. Some are forced to. Some choose to. But either way, the symbol stands.
I’ve seen how Britain’s liberalism can be weaponised against those fleeing persecution. How our well-meaning tolerance of woman-hating customs can serve to further marginalise the very people we ought to protect.
Eight years ago, my partner and I housed a young woman who’d fled an Islamic theocracy. Let’s call her F. In many ways, she was a typical 20-something — she liked YouTube makeup tutorials and shopping. But she was extraordinary in one vital respect: she was an atheist. That alone had earned her a short stint in prison and put her on the radar of the secret police in her home country.
She managed to get a visa to the UK, but only with her father’s permission and her brother as a chaperone. Her plan was to claim asylum at Heathrow. But when she landed, a Border Force officer — wearing a hijab — greeted her with a cheery, “It’s OK sister, you can cover up here in the UK too.” No doubt intended kindly, the message landed like a stone. To F, it was a warning that Britain might not support her rejection of Islam after all. She panicked and held off applying. That hesitation was later used against her in her claim.
Thankfully, she won on appeal. It was the right decision: there was no question her life would be at risk if she returned. We didn’t stay in touch, but I’ll never forget watching her feel the wind in her hair for the first time. It is women like her who are forgotten when awkward white people make excuses for the inexcusable lest they be thought racist.
Of course, when the backlash against political Islam comes — as it surely will — it’s women who’ll bear the brunt. We’re already seeing a rise in reports of women having their hijabs yanked off in the street. It’s an ignorant reaction that attacks the symptom, not the cause.
Yes, women’s clothing is still policed in the UK — by tabloids, comedians, and public opinion. But while a woman here might be jeered at as mutton dressed as lamb or sneered at as a bag lady, we don’t face prison or torture for our outfits. No culture gets it perfect. But few get it as wrong as states governed by Sharia.
Still, a state-imposed burqa ban could backfire. Without their cloaking, some women may simply be forbidden to leave home. A woman invisible in public is still freer than one locked indoors.
But that risk doesn’t mean we stay silent. If veiling is, at its core, about controlling women — and if it rests on the idea that men aren’t responsible for their actions — then refusing to challenge it isn’t tolerance. It’s surrender.
Banning the burqa won’t free every woman who wears one. But it would send a powerful message: women are not responsible for men’s behaviour. Modesty is not a precondition for safety. And treating men like insatiable predators and women like bait is not a value worth protecting.
The harm that’s concealed by the burqa isn’t anything to do with women’s bodies; it’s to do with men’s minds. We must face Islamist misogyny in the UK, eye-to-uncovered-eye.
