A far-Right political party which inflicted damaging losses on Angela Merkel in German regional elections is reportedly to rebrand itself as openly anti-Muslim.

A powerful faction within Alternative for Germany (AfD) want to put overt opposition to Islam at the heart of the party’s programme, according to Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper.

The move follows reports the party wants to ban minarets, the call to prayer, and male circumcision, and would put the party on a collision course with Germany’s estimated four million Muslims.

“Islam is a political ideology that is incompatible with the German constitution,” Beatrix von Storch, one of the party’s deputy leaders and an MEP, told the newspaper.