One point being made here is that women who wear the veil are 'separating' themselves socially, that the veils are a barrier to communication and are a body-language signal saying 'keep your distance'. Well, I sometimes feel that way about people who travel on public transport but are immune to the world with their iPod headphones and 'dunmph-dunmph-dunmph' bass line, or people who are totally absorbed in their mobile phones. Ban these as well, while we're at it. But I just don't get it - for ages the 'fuddy duddies' were saying that women in miniskirts were not acceptable, miniskirts were a social statement of sexual promiscuity etc., etc., and there was a loud chorus from feminists about 'a woman's right to wear what she wants' and other people's problem if they didn't like it. What has happened to that 'fundamental' right? Suddenly it seems, some women are not to be free to wear veils even if it makes them happy to do so.

Another post here proclaimed: " After all if we go to one of their counties we have to follow their customs and traditions. They can come to Britiain, live with their traditions, moan if the government of our country says something against them. No doubt some do gooder will call me racist, if their traditions are so important to them why leave their country and live in a country which is so wrong"
    Well, it seems that not only does the Western world expect Muslims to 'fit in' to the western secular model of society while these Muslims are living in the West, they also expect them to fit in even when the Muslims are living in their own countries. So firmly does the West believe in the inherent rightousness of its own social model, that it has set off to impose it at gunpoint on whole swathes of the Muslim world.

Specifically on Straw,he has suggested that Muslim women who wear the veil risk provoking a climate of fear and resentment that plays into the hands of the far right. So, to appease the far right are Muslim women to forgo the public expression of their culture and religious beliefs? Those who 'don't understand' Muslim culture might find the veil 'frightening and intimidating' he adds. Then surely that is their own problem and the way forward is to educate such people away from their ignorant prejudices. Both Straw and Gordon Brown say they believe that removing the veil should not be compulsory but it is clear they are preparing public opinion for the day when it will be so. It is part of a wider project to socially engineer the Muslim community in the UK to be more like Britishers, whatever that may be. But it fails to appreciate that society is an organic thing that develops quite naturally over time in a way that overarches legislation. Once, being British meant being Celtic, then Saxon, then Anglo-Norman and so on. It may yet mean generally being born in Britain, and raised a Muslim. That's life.