Luton North MP Sarah Owen has condemned as “dangerous and disingenuous” a call by newly elected Reform MP Sarah Pochin for a national ban on the burka, in a heated exchange aired live on BBC Politics Live yesterday.
The clash followed the Runcorn and Helsby MP’s debut at Prime Minister’s Questions last week, where she urged Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer to back a ban on the whole body covering worn by some Muslim women, citing public safety and cultural integration.
Last week, the then Reform party chair, Zia Yusuf, said it was a “dumb” question as it was not party policy before quitting the party and then rejoining 48 hours later, admitting he’d apologised to Ms Pochin.
Ms Owen, who represents one of the most diverse constituencies in the country – where 2021 census data showed that nearly a third of residents identify as Muslim – also criticised the Ms Pochin’s PMQ question in an Instagram post last week.
Again this week, Ms Owen, who chairs the Women and Equalities Committee, strongly rejected Ms Pochin’s reasoning.
“There’s a slight irony there, Sarah talking about husbands telling their wives what to wear, but quite happy with the state telling women what to wear. I don’t think that’s where we should be,” the Labour politician said during the programme.
Angered by Pochin’s argument that burkas pose a public safety risk, Ms Owen called it a “dog whistle” that has real-life consequences, referencing violent disorder that spread across towns and cities in the UK last year, where ethnic groups were targeted, following misinformation that circulated online about the killer of school children in Southport.
“Zia Yusuf called it dumb. I would say it’s dangerous and disingenuous, if I’m honest, the way that that PMQ was phrased,” Ms Owen said of Ms Pochin’s question in PMQs, adding: “Dangerous because, less than a year ago, we saw riots in our streets because of dog whistle politics such as what we heard just then. We saw mosques attacked. We saw people scared — people that I know, my friends, constituents of mine in Luton that were absolutely terrified to even go out because of that sort of debate and the tone of that debate.”
Challenging Ms Pochin’s claims about public safety, Ms Owen questioned why her PMQ focused on Muslim women rather than a broader concern about face coverings, she said: “If it was genuinely about public safety, why not ask the question about balaclavas rather than burkas?”
Ms Pochin insisted her concerns were based on feedback from constituents who felt “threatened” by cultural differences and said the burka acted as a “barrier to integration”. She also claimed a police officer had thanked her for raising the issue, arguing that full face coverings complicate efforts to identify criminals.
But Ms Owen said such arguments risk fuelling division, not unity. “There does seem to be a certain type of person that you seem to be very scared of, and I don’t really understand that — the statistics don’t back that up,” she said.
The conversation became more personal when Ms Pochin claimed it was impossible to speak with women who wear the burka. The Luton North MP immediately rebutted: “You can. I speak to women wearing the burka all the time,” explaining that some women have chosen to remove their face covering in front of her during private conversations with other women.
The exchange also touched on the Prime Minister’s recent comment that the UK risked becoming “an island of strangers”, a phrase Ms Owen said did not reflect her lived experience.
“I live in a really multicultural, really diverse part of the country. I want to see greater integration, but that comes from understanding, not othering,” she said, adding: “What we’re seeing at the moment in this debate is othering.”
She added: “I’m a result of multiculturalism. So when I hear people like Kemi Badenoch [Conservative leader] or Suella Braverman [Fareham and Waterlooville MP], or anybody even in my own party, talking about how it’s an experiment gone wrong, I’m going to take that personally because, ultimately, I wouldn’t be here without it.”
Owen went on to highlight the community solidarity in Luton, including mosques that open their doors during Eid and gurdwaras supporting local people in need, saying: “I think we need to see much more of that and, actually, a little bit less of the othering.”
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