Reform UK’s candidate for the 2028 London mayoral election, Laila Cunningham, has been accused of endangering Muslims after she said women wearing the burqa should be subject to stop and search.
Speaking on the Standard podcast, Cunningham said no one should cover their face ‘in an open society’, adding: ‘It has to be assumed that if you’re hiding your face, you’re hiding it for a criminal reason.’ She also suggested that parts of London felt like a ‘Muslim city’, citing signs in other languages and burqas being sold in markets, and argued for ‘one civic culture’ that ‘should be British’.
Shaista Gohir, a crossbench peer and chief executive of the Muslim Women’s Network UK, called the comments ‘dangerous’ and a ‘dog whistle’ to racists. She said they would further alienate Muslim women, noting that the number of burqa wearers in the UK is ‘tiny’. Gohir also said her charity had removed signage and staff pictures after receiving a sharp rise in abusive letters and emails.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan said figures ‘trying to sow seeds of division’ were nothing new and that a mayor’s job was to bring people together. Labour MP Afzal Khan described the remarks as a ‘deliberate and cynical ploy’ and referred to research indicating that Boris Johnson’s previous comments about veiled Muslim women had led to a surge in anti-Muslim attacks.
Cunningham, a former Crown Prosecution Service prosecutor and British-born Muslim of Egyptian descent, has faced Islamophobic abuse since her candidacy was announced. The burqa issue has previously proved awkward for Reform, with former party chair Zia Yusuf having called a proposal for a burqa ban ‘dumb’. He reposted Cunningham’s interview on X on Friday.
