Britain's race chief warns of violence over veil row

"The row in Britain over Muslim women wearing the veil could trigger riots and worse, the country's race relations watchdog chief warned.

Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, said the divisions exposed in the debate that his dominated British media for more than two weeks risked sparking 'fire' on the streets.

He said the friction between communities risked becoming 'the trigger for the grim spiral that produced riots in the north of England five years ago. Only this time the conflict could be much worse'.

'All the recent evidence shows that we are, as a society, becoming more socially polarised by race and faith,' Phillips wrote in The Sunday Times newspaper." More.