Britain will not follow France by introducing a law banning women from wearing the burka, the immigration minister has ruled.
Damian Green said such a move would be “rather un-British” and run contrary to the conventions of a “tolerant and mutually respectful society”.
He said it would be “undesirable” for Parliament to vote on a burka ban in Britain and that there was no prospect of the Coalition proposing it.
His comments will dismay the growing number of supporters of a ban. A YouGov survey last week found that 67 per cent of voters wanted the wearing of full-face veils to be made illegal.
Mr Green used a wide-ranging interview with The Sunday Telegraph, his first since taking up his post at the Home Office in May, to issue a “message around the world that Britain is no longer a soft touch on immigration”.
He said the summer would see a major crackdown on the main streams of illegal immigration — including sham marriages, illegal workers and people trafficking — and confirmed that this autumn the Government would set an overall cap on migrants entering Britain from outside the European Union.
His firm decision to rule out a burka ban will disappoint some Right-of-centre Tory MPs, including Philip Hollobone, who has tabled a private member’s bill that would make it illegal for anyone to cover their face in public.
Mr Hollobone, the MP for Kettering, said this weekend that he would refuse to hold any constituency meetings with women wearing burkas.
The United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip) has also supported calls for a ban after last week’s vote by French parliamentarians to outlaw full-face veils, including burkas, in public. Deputies in France’s National Assembly backed the ban by 335 votes to one.
The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester, has revealed he is not in favour of an outright ban on the burka – but adds that they should not be worn if doing so “compromises public or personal safety, endangers national security or impedes professional or social interaction”.
In an article for The Sunday Telegraph he says: “In those circumstances, it is difficult to see how it can be allowed.”
Mr Green said he did not think that the French vote for a ban would have an impact on immigration into Britain.
“I stand personally on the feeling that telling people what they can and can’t wear, if they’re just walking down the street, is a rather un-British thing to do,” he said. “We’re a tolerant and mutually respectful society.
“There are times, clearly, when you’ve got to be able to identify yourself, and people have got to be able to see your face, but I think it’s very unlikely and it would be undesirable for the British Parliament to try and pass a law dictating what people wore.
“I think very few women in France actually wear the burka. They [the French parliament] are doing it for demonstration effects.
“The French political culture is very different. They are an aggressively secular state. They can ban the burka, they ban crucifixes in schools and things like that.
“We have schools run explicitly by religions. I think there’s absolutely no read-across to immigration policy from what the French are doing about the burka.”
Mr Green’s comments came after the new head of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) told The Sunday Telegraph that Britain was the most welcoming country in Europe for Muslims.
Farooq Murad pointed to the spread of mosques and sharia, or Islamic law, as positive signs of the greater freedom Muslims are given in this country.
He warned that any moves to restrict the expression of Islam by banning the veil or blocking the building of minarets would alienate the Muslim community and threaten social cohesion.
Mr Murad, who last month succeeded Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari as secretary general of the MCB, said: “Life in Britain is much more welcoming and healthy for Muslims than in other European countries.
“There’s a great British sense of fairness and justice. We can have great pride in what a tolerant country Britain is, looking at the growth of mosques, and how nearly more people eat halal meat than don’t.”
On immigration, Mr Green said the Coalition’s aim was to put “steady downwards pressure” on immigration from outside the EU so that net immigration fell “to the tens of thousands” by the time of the next election, expected in 2015.
He ruled out an amnesty for illegal immigrants.
“There will not be an amnesty under this government: my Lib Dem colleagues have accepted that … just looking around the world that would send a terrible signal.
“Out there in other countries there has been the view that Britain’s borders are not very well defended and that if you can get into this country it’s relatively easy to operate here, to work illegally and so on. We’ve got to change that perception around the world.”
Steady pressure on numbers to reduce net immigration substantially over time was the “best way to restore public confidence”, he said.
