Archbishop warns politicians on spreading fear

Friday, 1 April 2005 12:00 AM

The Archbishop of Canterbury is urging politicians to resist exploiting voter fears on terror and asylum in the approach to the general election.

In an open letter to party leaders, Dr Rowan Williams warns against the effects of negative campaigning so close to the election, widely expected to take place on May 5.

He urges vigilance against "reactive, damage-limiting solutions" to anxieties such as terrorism, crime, asylum and immigration, warning that fostering anxiety over immigration was inherently racist.

Labour has been criticised for whipping up fear through its anti-terrorism laws, while the Conservatives recently ran a poster campaign saying: "It's not racist to impose limits on immigration."

But Dr Williams told last night's BBC2's Newsnight: "It's racist to whip up the kind of anxiety that can be so easily generated on this subject.

"That will always present asylum seekers, for example, as a menace, as an uncontrollable menace."

Running a campaign to frighten people would not do, he said, and would certainly fail to capture the imagination of the people.

Fear was a "button that can be pushed", the archbishop said, as it was something that was an easy to reach for.

"But in fact we have quite a good record of integrating people. We have people with skills coming in. So I think that's an issue we have to move on from," he said.

In his letter to party leaders, Dr Williams outlines his stance on the fundamental problems in society that ought to be addressed.

He calls on politicians to break fresh ground in offering "constructive" alternatives to current prison policy and made the case for "restorative justice.

The archbishop says he was also looking for policies to promote "stable families and marriage" to counterbalance the growing numbers of "severely emotionally undernourished and culturally alienated" young people.

"The climate of chronic family instability, sexual chaos and exploitation, drug abuse and educational disadvantage is a lethal cocktail," he writes.

On Thursday, Michael Howard pledged to make yobs "fear" the police again if the Conservatives were returned to power at the general election.

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