Racial 'cold war' a possibility, warns equality watchdog
Sunday, 20 April 2008 12:00 AM
Rising immigration has increased the risk of a "cold war" between disparate ethnic groups, according to equality chief Trevor Philips.
The head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission is to speak on the 40th anniversary of Enoch Powell's infamous 'rivers of blood' speech and is expected to stress the need to cope with increasing tension over immigration.
Though he will explain that Powell's predictions - that mass immigration would spark dire social unrest - have not come true, he is expected to press the need for government responses to the concerns of different communities.
"Powell predicted 'hot' conflict and violence. However, we have seen the emergence of a kind of cold war in some parts of the country, where very separate communities exist side by side... with poor communication across racial or religious lines," Mr Phillips will say at the Midland hotel in Birmingham.
"In essence, Powell so discredited any talk of planning or control that it gave rise to a migration policy in which government knew too little about what was going on.
"Ironically, Powellism and the weakening of control it engendered may have led Britain to admitting more immigrants rather than fewer."
Enoch Powell, a shadow frontbencher in 1968, had compared racial unrest in the US to the Roman poet Virgil's description of "the River Tiber foaming with much blood", in a speech which made the discussion of immigration a largely no-go area for the mainstream British political parties for fear of being accused of racism.
Mr Philips will stress that a lack of proper discussion about immigration would see increased support for parties opposed to the issue, such as the BNP, with the "settled" population unable to voice their concerns about the impact of mass immigration.
He will say: "For every professional woman who is able to go out to work because she has a Polish nanny, there is a young mother who watches her child struggle in a classroom where a harassed teacher faces too many children with too many languages between them."
Shadow home secretary David Davis said Mr Philips' comments will strike a "brave and timely warning" about the consequences of rising immigration.
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