- The Observer,
- Sunday December 21, 2003
A truly progressive government might see a crying need for a positive campaign of anti-racism. Instead, says David Blunkett, we'd better tighten up immigration law in order to appear 'reassuring' to voters that might otherwise tend to the BNP. Blunkett reminds us of the anti-Semitism of the 1930s, but I don't recall progressives of that period suggesting that we get a bit tougher with the Jews in order to fend off the fascists.
Michael Walsh
Hartford
Connecticut
United States
David Blunkett's desire to combat racism is admirable. It is the means rather than the end which cause concern. Aggressive, headline-grabbing rhetoric and demeaning treatment of asylum-seekers do not prevent right-wing extremism; they encourage and legitimise it.
Likewise, cutting the entire immigration process off from the mainstream judicial system, as is now planned, turns those involved in it into lesser beings, not as deserving of rights and justice as British people.
Alasdair Mackenzie
London SW11
David Blunkett defends his asylum policies, not on the grounds that they are right, but as a tactic to spike the guns of the BNP. By claiming that the alternative to his draconian policies would be an immigration free-for-all, he is adopting the language and agenda of those he claims to oppose.
If Mr Blunkett is incapable of challenging the lies and scaremongering of the far-Right, without accepting their racist creed, he is unfit for public office and ought to be replaced. Mr Blunkett's particular brand of racism-lite and bleeding-heart fascism can never be an acceptable alternative to the real thing.
Martin Bove
London N20
David Blunkett tells us that 'the BNP focus on a sense of injustice born out of poverty and insecurity; a sense that asylum-seekers, immigrants, everyone who looks different is getting an easier time of it than hard working white families'. The remedy, and another dilemma, is in his hands. The remedy is to describe the actual depth of poverty for both immigrants and UK citizens on low pay and when unemployed. The dilemma is that if a Cabinet Minister admits the lowest statutory minimum incomes of everyone in the UK, immigrant or not, are at destitution level he will imply something needs to be done about it.
Rev Paul Nicolson
London N17
