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Immigration debate essential says equality watchdog

20/04/2008

The head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission has said the UK must begin a new debate in light of "creeping resentment" about immigration.

Trevor Philips was speaking on the 40th anniversary of Enoch Powell's infamous 'rivers of blood' speech and called on the public to beware of confusing immigration and terrorism.

Mr Philips was speaking at the Midland hotel in Birmingham, the same venue in which Wolverhampton South West MP Powell had predicted that mass immigration would spark dire social unrest.

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 said today: "For 40 years we have, by mutual consent, sustained a particular silence on the one issue where British people most needed articulate political leadership.

"Powell so discredited any talk of planning that we have plunged along with an ad hoc approach to immigration."

He called for a new approach to immigration to ensure that Britain benefited from the "tide of talent" around the world.

"Whatever we feel about immigrants, immigration is part of our future," he went on.

"The real question will be whether we can, as a modern economy, seize the restless tide of talent that is currently sweeping across the globe. So far we are lagging behind our competitors.

"But while we cower in fear and fret about whether to admit clever foreigners from other nations - America, Australia and Canada are already sailing on that tide of talent."

He continued: "I believe that the more we talk about immigration the better. Many think that this is not the time or the place for this debate. I understand their anxieties. "

"If we cannot talk about it now, then when?" he asked.

Shadow home secretary David Davis said Mr Philips' comments will strike a "brave and timely warning" about the consequences of rising immigration.