Here are the two paragraphs of the article that have people so riled up.
'If you tell me that the burka is oppressive, then I am with you. If you say that it is weird and bullying to expect women to cover their faces, then I totally agree – and I would add that I can find no scriptural authority for the practice in the Koran. I would go further and say that it is absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes; and I thoroughly dislike any attempt by any – invariably male – government to encourage such demonstrations of “modesty”, notably the extraordinary exhortations of President Ramzan Kadyrov of Chechnya, who has told the men of his country to splat their women with paintballs if they fail to cover their heads.
If a constituent came to my MP’s surgery with her face obscured, I should feel fully entitled – like Jack Straw – to ask her to remove it so that I could talk to her properly. If a female student turned up at school or at a university lecture looking like a bank robber then ditto: those in authority should be allowed to converse openly with those that they are being asked to instruct. As for individual businesses or branches of government – they should of course be able to enforce a dress code that enables their employees to interact with customers; and that means human beings must be able to see each other’s faces and read their expressions. It’s how we work.'
He doesn't say that those wearing the burka or the niqab look like bank robbers - you can of choose to read it like that, but he is making the point that a female student covers their face, then that shouldn't be allowed, (and I've had 15/16 year olds and sixth formers in the classroom covering their face with scarves because they had a ginormous zit; or they'd applied their foundation badly and had a tide mark, or there was a new lip or chin piercing they were trying to hide).
He goes on to say:
All that seems to me to be sensible. But such restrictions are not quite the same as telling a free-born adult woman what she may or may not wear, in a public place, when she is simply minding her own business. I am against a total ban because it is inevitably construed – rightly or wrongly – as being intended to make some point about Islam. If you go for a total ban, you play into the hands of those who want to politicise and dramatise the so-called clash of civilisations; and you fan the flames of grievance. You risk turning people into martyrs, and you risk a general crackdown on any public symbols of religious affiliation, and you may simply make the problem worse. '
Having read the article in full it seems to me that he is against banning the burka in the UK. I don't think women should be covering their faces either unless necessary for work, ditto for men.
It is getting to the point that no criticism can be made of Islam or the culture of some of its adherents, without calls of racism. If we are allowed to critique other religions, then Islam cannot and must not be exempt from that.