It’s not immigrants, it’s Tories tearing us apart

- Broadcaster Michael Buerk (pictured), who is to host a new TV show in which top chefs concoct royal recipes enjoyed by monarchs over the years IT isn’t high levels of immigrants that has torn communities apart (Examiner, December 6) but successive government policies as can be verified by the hundreds of thousands of jobs lost in the mining industry over the years.

From the late 19th century the Tories and their ilk have always scapegoated minorities as a way of deflecting opinion from their own divisional policies.

The backlash against Irish and Jewish immigrants resulted in the notorious Alien bill of 1904.

Cracking down on immigrants has been a mainstay of Tory electioneering ever since.

When immigrants came to this country after the Second World War at our request they were met in some places with a colour bar in jobs, housing, pubs, clubs and works canteens – these people weren’t allowed to integrate.

I chair my local tenants and residents association in which Muslims play an active role in organising around local issues and events.

The working class is far more ethnically mixed than the rest of the population.

When it comes to segregation it is the wealthy who choose to move away from communities and send their kids to private schools so as not to mix with other children.

Britain has the highest level of mixed-race marriages in Europe. We are not a racist or segregationist country.

In 1999 the BNP won over 100,000 votes in the European elections, a decade later they polled almost a million votes, they were the fifth biggest party in Europe but now, due to communities coming together under the ‘hope not hate banner,’ the BNP does not have a single councillor in the UK today.

Finally let’s not forget that immigration is a two-way policy – almost six million Brits work and live abroad. If it’s good enough for the Brits, it’s good enough for the rest of the world.