A Reform UK MP has been criticised for making a joke about wearing a “tartan burqa” during the party’s launch of its Scottish election campaign.
Sarah Pochin, who has previously been condemned for calling for a ban on burqas, made the comment on Thursday when delivering a speech at a country club in Renfrewshire.
Moments after her autocue froze, the Runcorn and Helsby MP told the conference: “I really wanted to come on in a Reform tartan burqa, but apparently I wasn’t allowed.
“One day, let’s have one of these events that aren’t livestreamed. We’ll do all the naughty stuff.
“We’ll do all the bits that have gone wrong and all the effing and jeffing when we do our pieces to camera and all the rest it – hilarious.”
The comments have been condemned by other parties, with a Labour spokesperson responding: “It took less than 30 seconds for Sarah Pochin to start making jokes about Muslims after her autocue broke.
“The same Sarah Pochin who said it drives her mad seeing too many Black and Asian people on TV adverts.”
Ms Pochin was branded “dumb” by the party’s chair Zia Yusuf when she used her first Prime Minister’s Questions question to call on the prime minister to ban burqas “in the interest of public safety” in June last year.
She said: “Given the prime minister’s desire to strengthen strategic alignment with our European neighbours, will he, in the interest of public safety, follow the lead of France, Belgium, Denmark and others and ban the burqa?”
A Reform spokesperson later clarified that banning burqas was not party policy, though Mr Yusuf said last month he would support a ban on “all face coverings in public” if the party gets into power, including the burqa.
It came after the party’s mayoral candidate for London was also condemned for saying that women who wear the burqa in public should be subject to stop and search.
Laila Cunningham, who will be Reform’s candidate in the capital’s election in 2028, sparked a significant backlash after telling the The London Standard that she would act to ban the wearing of the religious garment in public.
“It has to be assumed that if you’re hiding your face, you’re hiding it for a criminal reason,” she said, without providing evidence.
Crossbench peer Baroness Shaista Gohir hit out at the Reform candidate, telling The Guardian her comments were “dangerous” and a “dog whistle” to racists.
Baroness Gohir, who is the CEO of the Muslim Women’s Network UK, told the newspaper Ms Cunningham 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”.
