SALMAN RUSHDIE provoked new anger from Britain’s Muslim community yesterday when he said that veils “suck”.

Rushdie was speaking on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, about his exhibition with the sculptor Anish Kapoor.

Responding to the debate following the disclosure by Jack Straw, the Leader of the House, that he requested women visiting his Blackburn constituency office to lift their veil, Rushdie said: “Speaking as somebody with a very largely female Muslim family, there’s not a single woman I know who would have accepted wearing a veil.”

The battle against the veil had been “a long and continuing battle against the limitation of women”, he said.

Rushdie said that Mr Straw had been “expressing an important opinion, which is that veils suck, which they do. I think the veil is a way of taking power away from women.”

The Muslim Council of Britain, which was set up following the controversy over Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses, said that Muslim women were trying to exercise the freedom of expression that the author had done in the book that led to the fatwa against him.

Inayat Bunglawala, its spokesman, said: “We describe Britain as a multi-faith society where people are allowed to practice their religion. Provided it is their choice to wear the veil it is the same freedom these women are invoking.”

Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammad, the extremist cleric who was last year barred from Britain by the Home Secretary, said that Rushdie was an “apostate” and that the fatwa against him would stand.

Yesterday Mr Straw received backing from Gordon Brown, who said the debate on the veil would continue.

In a speech at Chatham House on terrorism, the Chancellor said: “In the debate about diversity and integration, we should also emphasise what we in Britain need to have in common: the responsibilities we should accept as citizens, as well as the rights.”

Later, asked by the BBC whether it would be better if fewer women wore the veil he replied: “That is what Mr Straw has said and I support it.”

Mr Straw has described the veil as a symbol of separation, and as making communication difficult.

On Monday. Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, said that she would not ask a Muslim woman to remove her veil.

Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary, and Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland Secretary, also supported the right of women to wear veils. Muslim groups have been inundated by threatening messages since the controversy arose. Massoud Shadjareh, of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said: “To argue that a few thousand women in veils constitute the obstacle to community cohesion is nothing but an Islamophobic ploy to ignore the root causes of alienation of the most discriminated community in Britain.”

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