‘We should challenge racism and xenophobia’

A PRIEST from Market Bosworth has issued a wake-up call to confront populist and far-right thinking in Britain.

Canon David Jennings warned against the “explosion of hatred directed primarily against migrants, whether in the United States, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Sweden, Brazil and Great Britain”.

The former minister at St Catherine’s Burbage said: “The threats against the asylum caravan travelling towards armed troops in America, with popular support in the US, is indicative of this level of fear and hatred.

“To describe these desperate people as an invasion is a perversion of the truth.”

He said support for racist and Islamophobic and figures such as Tommy Robinson in our country “should elicit a wake-up call to confront this evil”.

He said: “The Church, if it is nothing else, is an agent of morality, moral concern and enlightened thinking.

“We should challenge racism, populism and xenophobia however it is represented and wherever it is evidenced.”

Rev Jennings signed a manifesto organised by clergy in Leicester Diocese in reaction to trends that “undermine the gospel principles of love, inclusion, hospitality and service”.

The manifesto called on Christians to challenge populist ideologies in the churches and society, to work with ecumenical partners to combat these issues and to encourage involvement in groups such as Hope not Hate and Unite against Fascism.