Britain’s two-tier burqa ban

True to their word, Hampshire Police have wasted no time in cracking down on ‘masked’ protesters. In Portsmouth last weekend, a self-proclaimed ‘gender-fluid Muslim convert’ wearing a burqa was detained, arrested and charged for allegedly refusing to reveal his (or her, or their) identity at an anti-immigration rally. The individual is due to appear at the Portsmouth Magistrates’ Court today.

‘I’m converting to Islam… and I’m gender fluid’, Timothy Miller, a 76-year-old pensioner from Southampton, told officers. ‘He’s identifying as a Muslim woman!’, bellowed the man next to Miller – or ‘Dusty’, as he insisted on being called. The crowd erupted in cheers. A short time later, Timothy ‘Dusty’ Miller was in handcuffs for breaching Section 158 of the Crime and Policing Act.

Of course, Miller probably expected to be arrested and charged for his choice of attire. And, by the letter of the law, he was committing an offence by refusing to reveal his identity when he was asked to by police. But what he has done – and no doubt intended to do – was expose the hypocrisy and double standards of the elite’s new obsession with face coverings.

Since anti-immigration protests erupted in Dover and Portsmouth earlier this month, politicians and the police have been fixated on what the participants have been wearing. In particular, they have taken great issue with the men in Dover who dressed in all black and wore balaclavas as they blockaded roads surrounding the port. Local Labour MP Mike Tapp accused the masked protesters of having ‘something to hide’, while Labour’s crime and policing minister, Sarah Jones, condemned them as ‘thuggish’. In a press release before the latest round of protests on Saturday, police confirmed that ‘powers to restrict the use of face coverings will be used’.

There are arguments for and against requiring protesters to reveal their identity. But it is obvious from recent experience that restrictions on face coverings only seem to apply to a certain type of protester. In London last October, neither the Labour government nor the police took issue with hundreds of masked Islamic sectarians marching through Whitechapel. Nor have they said anything about anti-Israel protesters who have routinely concealed their faces with keffiyehs. It is only when white working-class men protest against illegal migration that powers to ban face coverings are called for or enforced.

This brazen double standard was on full display when Timothy Miller was arrested. Opposite the anti-immigration rally was a smaller Stand Up to Racism counter-protest. One of the protesters can be clearly seen wearing a burqa. But predictably, the police took no action.

And it’s not just when it comes to protests where this two-tier approach is applied. In Nottingham last week, the local council announced a crackdown on the ‘anti-social’ use of face coverings by mainly young gangs. Which sounds fair enough. Nearly everyone agrees that it is ‘anti-social’ to conceal your identity in public. Yet Nottingham City Council’s leader was at pains to reassure residents that religious face coverings – ie, burqas – would be exempt from the ban.

The arrest of Timothy Miller brings us into uncharted territory. It seems the UK has unwittingly banned the burqa, but only for those whom the authorities don’t consider to be Muslims. This is two-tier policing at its most absurd and hypocritical.