02 Oct 2003

Commenting on speeches and interviews made by both the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary, Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty, said: 'To suggest, as both Mr Blair and Mr Blunkett have done, that cracking down on asylum seekers, many of them victims of torture and false imprisonment, is the price of good race relations, is blatant pandering to the far right. They are trying to scare decent people into tolerating the denial of basic human rights to exceedingly vulnerable people. His words certainly chilled me as a British citizen of Indian origin. The facts are that less than 2% of the World’s refugees are in the UK. Within the EC, the UK ranks 12th in terms of numbers of asylum applications as a proportion of the national population. The overwhelming majority of asylum seekers come from countries racked by war and/or members. of persecuted ethnic groups. Before the last election Mr Blair said that he would never play the asylum/race card to gain cheap popularity. Now that the Government is facing difficulties both he and his Home Secretary are doing just that. They should feel ashamed.'