Want to ban the burka? Try asking the women like me first
It wasn't just a mishearing.
It was a reminder that in this country, politicians feel entitled to debate our clothing, our faith and our freedom - yet still stumble over the word burka. They discuss what Muslim women wear, but can't pronounce it correctly. It's not burger, and it's not burk-ah. It's boorkah.
The very least politicians can do, before legislating our lives, is get the name right.
Some might argue that since some Muslim-majority countries have banned the burka - that makes it a legitimate position. Morocco, Tunisia, and others have imposed restrictions, often in the name of modernisation, national unity, or security.
Runcorn and Helsby MP Sarah Pochin questioned Keir Starmer in Prime Minister's Questions whether he would follow some European countries lead in banning the burka. pic.twitter.com/oyhZClOArr
— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 5, 2025
But authoritarianism should not be confused with liberation. The outcome is the same: women's agency is erased, and the state decides how we appear in public. That isn't empowerment - it's control, dressed up as reform.
In 2015, a white man approached me and asked: 'What colour is your hair under your veil?' I replied: 'It's pink,' but didn't ask him what colour his hair had been before he went bald.
That moment stayed with me because it revealed how people feel entitled to interrogate Muslim women.
I later wrote a book about that experience, My Hair Is Pink Under This Veil, chronicling my decision to wear the hijab and the questions, assumptions, and aggressions that came with it. The burka, like the hijab, has become a symbol onto which people project their fears, fantasies and frustrations.
But behind every veil is a person - thinking, choosing, living.
So when politicians like Sarah Pochin suggest banning the burka, they're not just mispronouncing a word, they're speaking for women like me without asking our opinion. Women like me who are voters, writers, public office holders and community builders. Our identities cannot be legislated away and our voices won't be silenced - not by policy, not by prejudice, not by fear.
This is discrimination, and it's happening in a country where 61% of young women from racial minorities already report facing bias at work.
The debate around Islam, inequality and integration shifts with every headline, political soundbite, crisis or act of violence.
Against this backdrop, Muslim women have had to fight to carve out our place in society.
How can we speak of integration in a Brexit era when Muslim women are still labelled "submissive" and white men feel emboldened to tear veils from our heads in public? When Muslim girls grow up amid poverty, deprivation, drug abuse and exploitation? When gender-based Islamophobia intensifies under the guise of national cohesion?
We must ask what the veil means - not just to Muslim women, but to those who react to it. Is it a personal expression of faith and identity? A misunderstood political symbol? Or a mirror exposing the anxieties of modern Britain?
Right-wing and nationalist forces have long exploited the veil as either a symbol of oppression or defiance, and labelled it something to fear.
I remember working on the Isle of Dogs in East London when the British National Party had a councillor elected. Combat 18 roamed the streets. A Muslim grocer had a pig's head flung into his shop in broad daylight.
There was one estate where I had to support two Bangladeshi families to relocate after repeated hostilities. One mother had her headscarf pulled off while walking her children to school. The racists shouted: "Rights for whites".
A local police station had to assign female officers to escort children to Quranic classes. In another case, a white woman filed a complaint against her elderly Muslim neighbour for planting coriander instead of roses in her garden. When I asked if the woman had broken any tenancy rules or caused disturbance, the complainant said no, but insisted: "She's gotta learn to be like us. British."
When Boris Johnson made his "letterbox" comment in 2018, several older Muslim women asked me if he owned a hairbrush, and said they'd gladly send him one if not.
That same weekend, I was travelling with a group of women when a man let us board the train first. One of the women wearing a niqab was the last to get on. As she stepped through the doors, he laughed and said: 'Hold on, you forgot the letterbox.'
He thought it was a joke, just quoting the former prime minister.
This is the landscape Muslim women navigate: a Britain where our plants, our clothing, our languages and even our presence are subject to judgment.
And still, we show up - as doctors, nurses, teachers, CEOs, activists, artists, engineers, journalists, scientists, academics, councillors, carers and community organisers.
Because we believe in a Britain where Muslim women are trusted to define our own visibility - not questioned, not punished and not erased.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


CBS News
13 minutes ago
- CBS News
Scotland's welcome for Trump to feature golf resorts, trade talks and protests
London — President Trump is due to arrive Friday for what the White House is calling a "working visit" to Scotland. It's expected to include a mix of both personal time, and political business. As was the case during his last visit as president in 2018, he is likely to be greeted by protests everywhere he goes in his mother's native land. The plan is for Mr. Trump to pay visits to his two luxury golf resorts in Scotland, Trump International on the east coast of Aberdeenshire, which he bought in 2012, and Trump Turnberry in Ayrshire, about 200 miles away on the west coast, which he purchased in 2014. During his visit he's also set to meet Scotland's top official, First Minister John Swinney, who publicly backed Kamala Harris' presidential bid against Mr. Trump last year. The American leader will also meet British Prime Minister Keir Starmer near the end of his trip in Scotland, and the current 25% U.S. tariffs on British steel imports could be a focus of discussion. Mr. Trump has Scottish roots through his mother, who was born in 1912 as Mary Anne MacLeod on the Scottish island of Lewis in the remote Outer Hebrides. But despite his ancestry, Mr. Trump can likely expect a luke-warm to cold reception on Scottish soil. Some Scots believe the American real estate mogul-turned-president has been good for the country, bringing in investment and with it, some employment, but others criticize the polices he has adopted during his second term. In advance of Mr. Trump's arrival, the Stop Trump Scotland protest group has been organizing demonstrations at Aberdeen and outside the U.S. consulate in Scotland's capital, Edinburgh — part of a so-called "Festival of Resistance" that aims to mix city-based actions with countryside activism around Mr. Trump's golf resorts. The demonstrations are slated to include large banners and messages in the sand of Scotland's coastline, intended to be visible to the president as he lands A senior Scottish police official told Britain's Sky News it would be "inappropriate" to ignore the assassination attempt against Mr. Trump a year ago. "There's a broad range of considerations," said Police Scotland Assistant Chief Constable Emma Bond. "It would be inappropriate for me to plan an operation and not bear in mind what has happened in other parts of the world. But with that in mind, we've got a really experienced team of officers working as part of planning the operation." During Mr. Trump's 2018 trip to Scotland, CBS News' partner network BBC News says there were more than 5,000 police officers deployed, with the U.K. Treasury chipping in about £5 million ($6.8 million) to help cover the costs to the Scottish police force. While he made his preference for Mr. Trump's opponent clear before the last U.S. election, the head of Scotland's government said it was his duty to meet with the U.S. president during his upcoming visit. "I've taken a decision that's in Scotland's interest to meet with the president of the United States so that I can use every opportunity to protect and to promote the interests of the people of Scotland," Swinney told Britain's PA news agency. "There's obviously a range of issues that we can cover around the international situation that's causing such anxiety to people in Scotland, around the situation the Middle East, and the situation in Ukraine, and the domestic issues that are important to us around about the implications of, for example, trade and tariffs on some of our key sectors, including Scotch whisky." Mr. Trump is expected to meet on Monday with Prime Minister Starmer, but due to it being officially a private visit, neither the White House nor Starmer's office have revealed much about what the two may do or discuss. For Starmer, however, keeping discussions going about U.S. tariffs imposed since Mr. Trump came back to the White House will likely be a key theme. President Trump has imposed 25% tariffs on imported British steel. Starmer hopes to get that rate lowered, to zero if possible, to shore up the U.K.'s steel industry, which has seen its output plummet by around 80% since the 1960's. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that the two leaders would meet "to refine the historic U.S.-U.K. trade deal" brokered in May. Mr. Trump will return to the U.K. for an unprecedented second official state visit on September 17, during which he is scheduled to meet with King Charles III. Starmer hand-delivered the invitation for that visit, on behalf of the monarch, when he visited Mr. Trump at the White House in February.
Yahoo
41 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Europeans to test Iran's appetite for nuclear compromise as sanctions loom
By John Irish and Parisa Hafezi PARIS (Reuters) -France, Britain and Germany will hold face-to-face talks with Iran on Friday for the first time since U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites in June, aiming to gauge Tehran's appetite for a compromise to avert sanctions, diplomats say. The three European countries, along with China and Russia, are the remaining parties to a 2015 deal - from which the U.S. withdrew in 2018 - that lifted sanctions on Iran in return for restrictions on its nuclear programme. Friday's talks between senior diplomats from the so-called E3 group and Iran's negotiating team will be held in Istanbul. The United States held five rounds of talks with Iran prior to its airstrikes in June, which U.S. President Donald Trump, said had "obliterated" a programme that Washington and its ally Israel say is aimed at acquiring a nuclear bomb. Iran denies seeking a nuclear weapon. European and Iranian diplomats say there is no prospect of Iran re-engaging with the U.S. at the negotiating table for now. But the Europeans say negotiations must be revived due to a halt in inspections of nuclear facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and as an October 18 deadline for the expiration of the 2015 deal draws closer. They also want answers over the location of 400 kg (880 pounds) of near-weapons grade highly enriched uranium, whose whereabouts have not been known since last month's strikes. "We are determined to do everything to reach a diplomatic solution," German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul told a press conference in Paris on July 18. SNAPBACK OR EXTENSION? Under the terms of the U.N. Security Council resolution enshrining the 2015 deal, U.N. sanctions could be reimposed before the agreement expires - a process that would take about 30 days. The E3, who do not want to lose leverage by letting the deal expire, have warned that unless there is a new nuclear accord they will launch the "snapback mechanism", which would restore all previous U.N. sanctions on Iran, including on the oil, banking and defence sectors. With Russia - an ally of Iran - taking over the Security Council presidency in October, the three European countries have signalled that the latest window to reactivate the sanctions would be the end of August. Three European, one regional and an Iranian diplomat said the meeting in Istanbul would focus primarily on the issue of the snapback mechanism. They said the E3 would float the possibility to Iran of extending the snapback mechanism by up to six months. In return, Iran would need to make commitments on key issues, including eventual talks with Washington, full cooperation with the IAEA, and accounting for its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. Speaking to reporters at the U.N. on Wednesday, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, who will be in Istanbul, said Tehran had agreed to allow a technical team from the IAEA to visit in the coming weeks. He warned that a triggering of the snapback mechanism would be met with a strong response from Tehran. It has previously threatened to leave the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) over the issue. Gharibabadi added that he had heard about the possibility of an extension. "That's very premature now to discuss the issue of the extension. We have almost about three months actually, till the deadline of 18th of October," he said. A Trump administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. was "coordinated" with the E3 when asked whether Washington was discussing the reimposition of sanctions with them, but declined to elaborate. Israel's Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer was in Paris on Thursday and due to meet French officials for talks on various subjects, including Iran, four sources said. Israel launched the attacks on Iran saying it wanted to remove any chance of its arch-foe developing nuclear weapons. (Additional reporting by Alexander Ratz in Berlin, Michelle Nichols at the United Nations and Matt Spetalnick in Washington;Editing by Helen Popper)


UPI
44 minutes ago
- UPI
U.K. and India sign 'Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement'
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi met on Thursday to sign a trade agreement between the two nations. Pool Photo by Chris J. Ratcliffe/EPA July 24 (UPI) -- Britain and India agreed to a free trade agreement between their two nations Thursday. "A new chapter begins today in the India-U.K. economic partnership," said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his social media platform Thursday. "The signing of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement reflects our shared commitment to enhancing trade, driving inclusive growth and creating opportunities for farmers, women, youth, [Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises] and professionals." The deal is expected to inject over $6.5 billion into the British economy and create more than $8 billion by way of investments from companies based in both countries. "Our landmark trade deal with India is a major win for Britain," British Prime Minister Keir Starmer posted to X Thursday. "This is about putting more money in the pockets of hardworking Brits and helping families with the cost of living." Modi and Starmer met and held a press conference on Thursday at Starmer's country house in Buckinghamshire County. Job growth in sectors such as technology, aerospace and manufacturing is expected, as noted in a press release from the U.K. Thursday. "Thanks to the deal, British workers will enjoy a collective uplift in wages of [nearly $3 billion] each year and could also see cheaper prices and more choice on clothes, shoes, and food products," the statement said. Scottish Labor Party MP Ian Murray praised the deal online Thursday. "The India Trade Deal is great news for Scottish jobs and business," Murray posted to X. "The landmark agreement will deliver [an over $257 million] boost for the Scottish economy as part of the Plan for Change." The U.K. Plan for Change are the current goals sought to achieve by the current British government. The agreement is also anticipated to make imported goods cheaper for Indian consumers, according to a press release from the Indian government Thursday, which would include luxury cars, gin, Scotch whisky, cosmetics and medical devices. "Within the next two years, India's leather industry is projected to increase its market share in the U.K. by 5%," the release said. Bharti Enterprises conglomerate Founder and Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal accompanied Modi as a delegate to meet with Starmer in England. "This agreement establishes a modern, forward-looking partnership that will stimulate innovation, ease market access, and foster investment," said Mittal. "Businesses in both India and the U.K. stand to benefit as this lays the foundation for expanding bilateral cooperation across key growth sectors." Tariffs between the U.K. and India will also lessen, as Britain will reduce levies on 99% of Indian exports, while India will decrease tariffs on 90% of British goods. The trade deal will "add momentum to the 'Make in India' led growth and export promotion," said Modi Thursday. "The future indeed holds the promise of greater prosperity and deeper ties between our nations."