Sack Abhijit Pandaya

The UKIP candidate in the Leicester South by-election, Abhijit Pandya, has called for workshy muslims to be forcibly repatriated in his blog.

Reading through his entire post, he actually makes some very good points about the ghettoisation and Islamisation of neighbourhoods with almost exclusively muslim populations and the high rate of unemployment there - I've been to a lot of these places in different jobs I've done and it's a real problem that the LibLabCon don't have an answer to.  And the way women are treated by fundamentalists in the name of religion is just wrong on any moral scale.

But all this is overshadowed by bloody stupid comments calling for forced repatriation of muslims without a "work ethic".  How can this man be head of research, advisor on community cohesion and PPC for a constituency where 40% of the population are from an ethnic minority when he starts parroting BNP policy?

Why not ban the burkha?

So far there have been two opinions represented here on Bloggers4UKIP on the proposed ban on wearing the burkha in public - outright opposition to the policy and a more balanced view.  I'll offer the alternative opinion - support for the ban.

Let's start by putting this into perspective.  The burkha is not in the Koran.  It is no more a genuine religious tradition than gospel singers or gay vicars.

Go into a bank or a petrol station forecourt or even some shops and you'll see one of these:

It's obvious why - if you were going to rob a bank or a petrol station, a bike helmet with a blacked out or reflective visor is an excellent disguise.  So why is it wrong to see one of these?

It is believed that one of the key suspects for the 7/7 terrorist attack (a man) in London escaped the country wearing a burkha.  In Afghanistan and Iraq, our troops are putting their lives on the line every time the encounter a burkha wearer - is it a suicide bomber or not?  But not just in Afghanistan and Iraq: on the streets of our own cities you will find many people covered head to toe in a burkha - the perfect disguise for a suicide bomber.

Like it or not, since the IRA stopped bombing the mainland, the only terrorist attacks or attempted terrorist attacks we have experienced have been down to muslims.

But it's not just the security risk, it's the social aspect as well.  It is essential that immigrants and the children of immigrants integrate with society rather than setting themselves aside from the rest of us by refusing to speak the language, refusing to associate with the "natives" and by covering themselves from head to toe.  All of these send out a very clear message - I am different, I am off limits.

If most people in this country don't want to see the burkha being worn on our streets then why should we have to see it?  It's not a genuine religious garment, there is nothing in the Koran to say that women have to wear it.  It is simply a lifestyle choice and not a matter of religious freedom.

It is not unreasonable to expect followers of an alien religion and culture to make an effort to integrate into society.  The burkha is a barrier to integration, it is anti-social and a security risk and if a majority of people in this country want it banned then who are we to say that is unacceptable?  Lord Pearson and Nigel Farage are responding to legitimate concerns about the burkha and the wider issue of Islamisation, something no other mainstream party will do.  Voters no longer have to choose the BNP if they want a party that will deal with immigration, overbearing political correctness and multiculturalism.

I am sure the burkha ban would be preceded by a referendum under the Swiss-style referenda policy that Lord Pearson announced as a key manifesto pledge and that it would actually be voters who decided with a UKIP government putting the case for the ban.

At the end of the day it's down to whether you think a minority of religious fanatics should be able to segregate themselves in public because of a fake tradition or whether the wishes of the majority are more important.

There's Nothing Liberal about Banning Symbols

Strongly opposed to the war in Iraq, frequently described as feminist and republican, the author Joan Smith, writing in The Independent today, does not come across as someone who would naturally have sympathy with UKIP’s burka ban policy.

However, Joan Smith acknowledges that the burka ‘limits women’s contact with non-relatives and maintains barriers between people who have different ethnic and religious backgrounds’ and that the garment signals a woman’s ‘deliberate separation from people unlike herself’. Smith points out that regardless of the woman's motive, whether it be family pressure, religious belief or political statement, the meaning of the burka remains the same: ‘separation, rejection, an acceptance of shame’. Thus she neatly concludes ‘wearing it in the 21st-century is preposterous’ but she concedes she would never support a ban.

A fellow feminist, who I believe would be more likely to support the ban is the Swiss, best-selling author of psychology books Julia Onken. Onken’s last minute email campaign was vital in swaying the vote of the recent Swiss referendum which banned the building of any further minarets in Switzerland. For Onken ‘the minarets are masculine symbols of power’. This has nothing to do with the minarets themselves but what they connote: a religion whose fundamentalist strands suppress women’s freedoms.

Many Swiss nationals were persuaded; the building of any future minarets was not voted against because they are an eye-sore, but because they represent a religion which has led to a perceived breakdown in social cohesion. Voting for the ban was making a statement.

If you overlook the genuine Islamophobes and racists, the desire of the Swiss people to ban minarets is very similar to the desire of UKIP’s leadership to ban burkas. Onken viewed the minarets as a symbol of Islamic patriarchy and this is just how Smith and Farage view the burka. Mr Farage said himself on The Politics Show that it is a ‘symbol of something that is used to oppress women’. Like the Swiss and minarets, Farage also views the burka as a symbol of the breakdown of social cohesion.

Mr Farage’s argument leads us into dangerous territory. Take the minaret example: Julia Onken attacked them because she saw no other way of expressing her views about extreme Islam. Surely It must be asked: why stop at minarets? By her own logic, if she had the chance, Onken would want to ban all the Islamic symbols in an attack on the religion's patriarchal nature, why not ban mosques, the Koran etc. And the exact same could be said of Farage’s line of argument. Why pick just the burka? Surely Mosques should be banned as they are spreading the doctrine of patriarchy and seclusion which he detests so much.

As any liberal will tell you tolerance and pluralism are the keystones to a free society. As Evlyn Beatrice Hall attributed Voltaire with writing: 'I detest what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it'. You might hate what is being worn but that gives you no right to ban it. If we believe the burka is inappropriate because it goes against our traditional British cultural values then so too must we ban that which is worn by Punks and Goths or the short skirts which our grandparents would of been shocked by in the 1950s.


Yes, let's encourage British culture in society, but forcing people to take part by restricting their liberty connotes fascist ideology (no surprise at all we're being linked with the BNP). Our Party would do well to concentrate on serious policy proposals in the regions of Foreign Affairs and Terrorism Legislation to deal with the real threats of Islamic extremism.