Kemi Badenoch has admitted she does not speak to women in burqas during constituency surgery.
The Tory leader also said bosses should have the right to ban employees from wearing burkas and other face coverings in the workplace.
She told the Sunday Telegraph she had “strong views about face coverings” after the explosive debate reignited last week when Reform’s chairman Zia Yusuf resigned amid a row over the religious garment, before rejoining on Saturday night.
Badenoch said: “If you come into my constituency surgery, you have to remove your face covering, whether it’s a burka or a balaclava.
“I’m not talking to people who are not going to show me their face, and I also believe that other people should have that control.
“Organisations should be able to decide what their staff wear; it shouldn’t be something that people should be able to override.”
However, she refused to ban the burqa outright, arguing it would be a waste of police time to enforce it.
The leader of the opposition blasted courts and first-cousin marriages as well for acting as an “insidious” obstacle to integration.
“If you were to ask me where you start with integration – sharia courts, all of this nonsense sectarianism, things like first-cousin marriage – there’s a whole heap of stuff that is far more insidious and that breeds more problems.
“My view is that people should be allowed to wear whatever they want, not what their husband is asking them to wear or what their community says that they should wear.”
Former Labour home secretary Jack Straw came under pressure in 2006 for asking women in his constituency surgeries to remove burqas in an effort to make the conversation have a greater value without a face covering.
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