Reform UK’s mayoral candidate for London has been accused of endangering Muslims after she said women wearing the burqa should be subject to stop and search.
Laila Cunningham, who was announced as Reform’s candidate for the 2028 mayoral elections last week, 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.”
Cunningham told the Standard podcast: “If you go to parts of London, it does feel like a Muslim city. The signs are written in a different language. You’ve got burqas being sold in markets.” She said there should be “one civic culture” and it “should be British”.
The former prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, herself a British-born Muslim of Egyptian descent, has been subjected to Islamophobic abuse since it was announced she would lead the rightwing party’s local election campaign in London.
The crossbench peer Shaista Gohir, who is the CEO of the Muslim Women’s Network UK, called Cunningham’s comments “dangerous” and a “dog whistle” to racists and said they would further alienate Muslim women, including the minority who wear a burqa.
Gohir said her charity had been forced to remove signage outside its offices and picture profiles of staff because of a sharp rise in the number of abusive and threatening letters and emails it had received. “We’ve had letters sent about grooming gangs saying all Muslims are scum, Muslims are filth,” she said. “It is hateful stuff, so obviously people are fearful.”
Gohir said that despite Cunningham’s background she was “sending a message to Muslims that they do not belong” and “emboldening people who already abuse Muslims and influencing those people who are reading this misinformation”.
She said: “The number of Muslim women who wear the burqa in this country is tiny, and yet [Cunningham] has chosen to focus on that instead of the NHS, schools or the cost of living. Is she going to get the police to arrest wealthy burqa-wearing visitors in Harrods, or is it just women in Whitechapel?”
Speaking on LBC after the comments, Sadiq Khan, London’s mayor, said figures “trying to sow seeds of division” was nothing new and that it was the job of a mayor to bring people together.
“Almost without argument, our city is the greatest city in the world because of our diversity,” he said. “I mean, how far back do you want to go in terms of freedom of religion, freedom of expression and so forth? These are quintessentially British rights that we’re so proud of.”
Afzal Khan, the Labour MP for Manchester Rusholme, called Cunningham’s comments a “deliberate and cynical ploy”, adding: “This is all about divisive ideas being pumped into the society deliberately for electoral benefits.”
He pointed to research that Boris Johnson’s comments comparing veiled Muslim women to letterboxes led to a surge in anti-Muslim attacks and incidents of abuse.
“There are consequences for the word that politicians use,” Khan said. “What anyone wears is no business of the state or the politicians. Individuals have the freedom to choose.”
The issue of the veil has been a difficult one for Reform. Last July, Reform’s former chair Zia Yusuf described a question from the party’s MP Sarah Pochin calling for a burqa ban as “dumb”, as it was not party policy. On Friday he reposted Cunningham’s interview on X.
