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LETTER : Roll on Budgen's racial nightmare

Chas Raws
Sunday 30 March 1997 23:02 BST
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Sir: Nicholas Budgen's consistency in promoting his creed of English insularity is reassuring. It applies to immigration as well as to the European threat. It would appear that, in his fevered nightmares, even if we are not to be overrun by predatory mainlanders, we are still open to hordes of non-white immigrants from farther afield.

To his credit John Major has repeatedly refused to play the race card, but the fact that it is still playable - and still seen as an ace - after so many years of settlement by black and Asian people is shameful.

In terms of numbers, immigrants have been exceeded by emigrants for many years, which makes irrelevant Mr Budgen's reference to 60,000 immigrants a year "even under the Tories". Obstacles to entry by black or Asian people, whether asylum seekers or family members of British citizens from the "New" Commonwealth, remain all but insuperable.

CHAS RAWS

Christian Action for Justice in Immigration Law

Glasgow

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