REFORM'S only woman MP has been criticised for joking about wanting to wear a tartan burqa at the launch of the party's Scottish election campaign.

Sarah Pochin, who grew up in the Forest of Dean and attended Monmouth School for Girls, previously sparked controversy after calling in Parliament for a ban on the wearing of the Islamic face covering.

The Runcorn and Helsby MP said after her autocue froze at the party's launch conference in Renfrewshire: “I really wanted to come on in a Reform tartan burqa, but apparently I wasn’t allowed.

“One day, let’s have one of these events that aren’t live streamed. We’ll do all the naughty stuff.

“We’ll do all the bits that have gone wrong and all the effing and jeffing when we do our pieces to camera and all the rest of it – hilarious.”

But her comments sparked anger, with Labour posting on X: "It took less than 30 seconds for Sarah Pochin to start making jokes about Muslims after her autocue broke.

“The same Sarah Pochin who said it drives her mad seeing too many Black and Asian people on TV adverts.”

Reform UK’s Scottish leader Malcolm Offord defended Ms Pochin’s “unscripted moment” though, saying it was "completely harmless".

“At Reform UK we have a nice atmosphere in the room. It was a little bit of humour. We need to stop taking it all quite so seriously,” he said.

“This is not racist. We have to understand we live in a diverse society and we all have to rub along together.”

Last June, after being elected as the party's first woman MP by just six votes in a by election, Ms Pochin asked Keir Starmer at Prime Minister's Questions: "Given the prime minister’s desire to strengthen strategic alignment with our European neighbours, will he, in the interest of public safety, follow the lead of France, Belgium, Denmark and others and ban the burqa?”

The PM said he was "not going to follow her down that line", but Reform UK leader Nigel Farage later said Ms Pochin's question had sparked a "relevant debate", adding: "I don't think face coverings in public places makes sense."

The female MP then sparked criticism on a TalkTV phone-in, when she told a caller: "It drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people.

“It doesn’t reflect our society and I feel that your average white person, average white family is not represented anymore in TV advertising...

"It's something that has happened, I believe because of the woke liberati that goes on inside this sort of arty farty world, and when it comes to northern towns like Runcorn that I represent, it is just not representative of the rest of the country.

"It might be fine inside the M25, but it’s definitely not representative of the rest of the country.”

She later apologised, saying her comments were "phrased poorly" but still maintained that many adverts were "unrepresentative of British society".