When a waiter approached Louise Burns at Claridge’s on Monday and told her hotel policy required her to cover her breastfeeding baby with a napkin, he cannot have predicted the events that he had just set in train.
Burns, feeling shocked and humiliated at being asked to conceal her 12-week-old daughter, tweeted a photograph of the incident, saying: “Asked to cover up with this ridiculous shroud while breastfeeding so not to cause offence at Claridge’s.”
Five days later, the outrage provoked by her tweets had swirled into a political storm involving the prime minister, the shadow home secretary and Ukip’s leader, Nigel Farage, and led to a protest that will gather on Saturday outside the luxury hotel to demand a change in its policy.
Downing Street was initially reluctant to be drawn into commenting on the incident, saying only that women should be free to breastfeed their babies in public.
But after Farage told a radio interviewer on Friday that breastfeeding mothers could “perhaps sit in a corner”, a question that had sparked heated debate on social media and parenting websites became a political one too.
Farage told LBC’s Nick Ferrari: “I think that given that some people feel very embarrassed by [breastfeeding], it isn’t too difficult to breastfeed a baby in a way that’s not openly ostentatious.”
If the hotel asked a nursing mother to cover up, he said: “Frankly, that’s up to Claridge’s. I very much take the view that if you’re running an establishment you should have rules.”
When asked if women should be told to go to the toilet to breastfeed, Farage replied: “Or perhaps sit in the corner, or whatever it might be – that’s up to Claridge’s. It’s not an issue that I get terribly hung up about, but I know particularly people of the older generation feel awkward and embarrassed by it.”
Responding to Farage’s comments, David Cameron’s spokesman said: “It’s for Mr Farage to explain his views. The prime minister shares the view of the NHS, which is that breastfeeding is completely natural and it’s totally unacceptable for anybody to be made to feel uncomfortable while breastfeeding in public.”
The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, later tweeted: “NHS recommends exclusive breastfeeding. Mums, ignore @Nigel_Farage & @ClaridgesHotel – no corners or covers needed #ostentatiousbreastfeeding.”
The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, suggested Farage himself should sit in a corner following his remarks.
The hotel was also condemned by the Liberal Democrat equalities minister, Jo Swinson, who said: “It’s depressing that when there are such well-documented benefits of breastfeeding, officious policies like this make new mums feel uncomfortable for doing nothing more than feeding their baby.”
“Many babies don’t like feeding under a tent and mothers shouldn’t be forced to cover up, as if they are doing something illicit or wrong.”
Farage later tried to clarify his remarks, blaming the media for misinterpreting him. “I personally have no problem with mothers breastfeeding wherever they want,” he said.
However, he went on to repeat his views that a public establishment “perhaps might ask women to sit in a corner” and argued that most breastfeeding women “will recognise the need to be discreet in certain, limited, circumstances”.
“Of course we allow breastfeeding at Claridge’s,” a spokeswoman for the hotel said, “We just ask guests to be discreet, that’s all.”
But the campaign group Free to Feed called on breastfeeding women and others to gather outside the hotel at 2pm on Saturday for what it described as a peaceful “nurse-in” in support of nursing mothers.
“Enough is enough. Claridge’s have had ample time to apologise for their mistake and rectify the situation by changing their ‘policy’, which states that they allow nursing mothers ‘as long as they are discreet’.
“Claridge’s seem to think that they are above the laws and legislation of this land,” a statement on the group’s website said.
