UKIP Could Be About To Talk More About Islam, by Josh Lowe.

It’s time, says UKIP leadership contender Lisa Duffy, for Britain to start talking more openly about Islam’s place in society. “I think it would be wrong of any political leader in this country,” she says, “not to recognize that Islam has the potential to become a big issue within our country.”

[She called] for the closure of Muslim faith schools “until the Islamist terror threat is securely in remission,” and a requirement to remove the Burqa face veil in some public places. …

Members of UKIP, a populist right-wing party until recently led by the proudly politically incorrect Nigel Farage, have been accused of bigotry, racism and much else besides throughout its 23-year lifespan. Each time, in turn, they have insisted they are simply voicing voters’ legitimate concerns.

UKIP, despite appealing to anti-immigration voters, has not in recent years made reforming or rejecting Islam a central focus of its policy or rhetoric. In this, it stands in marked contrast to some of its equivalent parties in continental Europe.

In Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AFD) has called for a full ban on the burqa, on minarets and on the call to prayer, and even officially states that Islam is not compatible with German society. A senior member of Denmark’s right-wing People’s Party recently called for all Muslim immigration to be temporarily banned in the country. In France, Front National leader Marine le Pen counts the eradication of “Islamism” among her most enduring themes.

hat-tip Stephen Neil