From The Times
Sir, Your leading article (“Veil of ignorance”, Jan 16) attacking UKIP’s proposed public ban of the burka may have pleased the [fashionable] Islington and Notting Hill sets, but does a huge disservice to the great majority of the British people who want an honest and balanced debate on this sensitive issue.
Moderate Muslims regard the burka as a sign of growing radicalisation, saying that we should demand to see people’s faces in public, so that we do not feel scared or frightened. Turkey has banned it already.
The sad reality is that Britain now has an anti-British Establishment who hate their own country and seek to denigrate it at every opportunity. This elite — this Lib-Lab consensus — is now dangerously out of touch on issues from the EU through defence spending to MP expenses and immigration.
UKIP deplores racism but will not shrink from facing serious and divisive issues head on. Someone has to.
David Campbell Bannerman, MEP Deputy Leader, UKIP