Legoland and Burkha Bans

My work takes me across the UK. I drive the length and breadth of the country in my little diesel car, racking up the miles, listening to podcasts and periodically swearing at speed cameras, other drivers and random lane closures. In theory, it’s a perk of the job – I like driving, I can’t be contacted for long periods of time and it’s an opportunity to explore our island. Of course, it’s not the pleasure it could be; I can’t be the only driver who presses down the clutch and red lines my engine when I read “Speed Limit In Place To Improve Air Quality” emblazoned in orange letters over a three lane motorway.

After a particularly tedious run, changing between 40mph and 50mph for reasons best known to our motorway gods, I was brought back, with a thump, to being seven years old and waiting to have my turn on a go-karting circuit at Legoland. I, along with my fellow pint-sized pod racers, were shuffled from our parents’ arms into the care of Legoland’s Finest (LLF). We stood in a mock race paddock and were shown a video which explained, in great detail, what we must do when we saw what seemed to me to be an inexhaustible number of warning signs, instructions and track conditions. The LLF’s faces were stoney and stern and my sense of fun had been replaced with one of dread. I made my way to the edge of the paddock and explained to the LLF that I didn’t think I wanted to be a racing driver after all and would be perfectly happy spending the day taking in their undoubtedly excellent model village. They shrugged, lifted me up by my shoulders and plonked me back over the wall. Unfortunately, no one thought to tell my parents, who were waiting for me at the finish line, watching the miniature carts tear round and presumably assuming I was there in the blur, fighting for a photo finish. I, meanwhile, after having walked up and down the Lego lined streets (which are slightly taller than a seven year old) and failing to find my parents, did the only thing left to me; I carried on walking whilst loudly crying. You’ll be pleased to learn that the tactic worked, a groundsman took me to a ‘lost and found’ where we were eventually reunited and I didn’t have to grow up in care.

It’s no coincidence that that feeling of being swallowed by arbitrary, confusing and sometimes contradictory rules increasingly comes back to me, and not just when I’m driving. All too often I get that sinking feeling, along with a desire to be able to say: “Thanks, but no thanks, I think I’ll get off here.” We Brits were born to live in a world where one can do what one likes, unless it’s expressly forbidden, and things which are expressly forbidden are kept to a minimum.

Whether it’s making sure not to stare in any one direction for too long when on the tube, wondering whether this tweet or internet comment will result in a visit from the police or any number of unfathomable dictates and speech codes; our world has been turned on its head. We are now a nation of people who ask for permission and, like the frog being slowly boiled, many of us seem not to have noticed. Of course, what permissions the state grants you, tacitly or explicitly, largely depends on your viewpoint and your background – no one said these new rules should be applied equally.

The elephant in the room here is that Byzantine legal aberrations like Non-Crime Hate Incidents wouldn’t feature in a cohesive society which knew what it was about. From norms and values to housing and road networks, mass migration impacts it all. Muscular liberalism is, to an extent, an oxymoron; the question is: “How far should authoritarian rules be employed to protect it?” Would the cure be just as bad as the cold?

Readers will be aware that Reform UK recently mooted a burkha ban; a clever tactical move which simultaneously sparked a nuanced national debate while demonstrating the party’s professionalism and depth. That is, if you discount the chairman flouncing off because the question was ‘dumb’ before returning two days later, while the new chairman reassures us that we are in fact a nation of immigrants after all and a burkha ban would extend to all face coverings… “We’re not that mean, please keep inviting me onto Good Morning Britain” (or words to that effect). This is a different tack again, a sort of colourblind authoritarianism, to coin a phrase. It seems to me to be the worst possible angle; losing liberalism and reducing freedom while doing nothing to promote British culture which, presumably, Reform UK would like people to assimilate into. It is the logical conclusion of the phrase ‘Diversity is our Strength’. But is that really the line we want our right populist banner-men to be chanting?

Issues like banning the burkha pose a problem for people like me who feel we’ve got rather too many rules already and still get palpitations when we see too many Danish building blocks in one place. A police officer stumbling through trying to discern whether the miscreant is in a burkha, a niqab or some other scarf which may or may not be religious, and then deciding what to do about it would be fraught. On the other hand, part of the reason our elites justify imposing so many rules on us is to artificially hold together our increasingly atomised society, so why not give them one more?

I’m certainly not swayed by those advocating a ban which is presented as incidental, like a ban on all face coverings, which would just so happen to include the burkha, or by those opposing wearing it on feminist grounds. The case to be made for a ban is one of social cohesion and the promotion of British culture. If it were to be introduced, it would have to be alongside other measures all aimed towards that one goal. Measures including banning halal and kosher slaughter and its import, breaking up Shariah courts and removing Stamp Duty exceptions spring to mind. These things could be introduced while removing laws like the Equality Act 2010, but it would require a politician willing to say difficult things and take a lot of flak. The alternative is ongoing decline or an adoption of colourblind authoritarianism which would see us acquiesce to ongoing reductions in freedom in the name of public safety whilst gaining nothing for it.

Unfortunately, it’s time for liberalism to start standing up for itself.

Oscar Evans is the pseudonym of an arborist who helps landowners to manage urban tree stocks.