Hostility and rejection based on religion are part of the history of the Catholic community in Great Britain. It was in living memory, for instance, that nuns in the streets of Britain could expect to be insulted, jostled or even stoned. There is therefore a strong strand of sympathy among Catholics for Muslims experiencing something similar today, particularly in relation to the current controversy over Muslim women who wear the face veil or niqab.

But distinctions still have to be made. In some conservative Islamic societies, the niqab is imposed by men on women, regardless of their wishes, and is a sign of female subjugation. In Britain, this kind of pressure on women is not unknown either, though there is also a trend among some Muslim women towards the voluntary adoption of a strict Islamic dress code as an assertion of identity.

The controversy was triggered by an article by Jack Straw, leader of the House of Commons and MP for Blackburn, who said that he found talking to women wearing the niqab in his constituency surgery difficult because of the lack of face-to-face communication. He had taken to asking them to remove their face covering, which so far all had agreed to do. Many found his remarks reasonable - it is indeed difficult talking to someone who keeps their face hidden, particularly when the reasons for doing so are only dimly understood by non-Muslims - but some saw Mr Straw as trying to impose his own views on dress code in areas that were none of his business.

The more important issue was whether wearing the veil symbolised the British Muslim community's rejection of British values and hence a fundamental refusal to integrate. The controversy has stirred up existing uneasiness about multiculturalism leading to parallel but separate societies, and the ghettoisation or even Balkanisation of Britain.

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