Prospective Tory MP quits after backing Powell on 'rivers of blood'

A Tory parliamentary candidate has been forced to resign after he refused to apologise for saying that Enoch Powell was right about immigration.

Nigel Hastilow was dropped as the party's candidate for Halesowen and Rowley Regis in the West Midlands after saying that the "red carpet" was rolled out for foreigners while local people were left to fend for themselves.

Writing in the Wolverhampton Express & Star, he said: "When you ask most people in the Black Country what the single biggest problem facing the country is, most say immigration. Many insist: 'Enoch Powell was right'... He was right. It has changed dramatically."

Mr Powell, then a Wolverhampton MP, was sacked from the Shadow Cabinet by Edward Heath in 1968 after his infamous "rivers of blood" speech, in which he said that seeing large numbers of immigrants arriving in Britain was "like watching a nation busily engaged in building its own funeral pyre".

Although Mr Hastilow's enforced resignation limited the damage for David Cameron, it appears he would have been allowed to remain a candidate if he had agreed to issue an apology during an hour-long meeting with Caroline Spelman, the Tory chairman. Mr Hastilow said: "They wanted me to issue a statement apologising and I didn't feel I had anything to apologise for.

"If I had said sorry I could have stayed on, but I am not sorry. I have not said anything racist. As far as I am concerned, there are too many people coming into the country and we cannot afford to accommodate them."

The row came at a bad time for Mr Cameron, who won praise for the sensitive way he had raised the immigration issue from Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Mr Hastilow said in a statement issued by Tory HQ: "I am very sorry that any remarks of mine have undermined the progress David Cameron has made on immigration, as on so many other issues.

"So, with regret and my continuing support for the future, I hereby tender my resignation.

"I thank my friends in the constituency association for their support."

Rival parties seized on the controversy as evidence that the Tories were still the "nasty party".

Peter Hain, the Work and Pensions Secretary, said Mr Hastilow had exposed "the racist underbelly of the Tory party."