UK view of migrants is bull****, says UN official
A UNITED Nations official has sparked fury after claiming the UK public sees immigrants as ‘ barbarians’ who threaten British culture.
Francois Crepeau, the Special Rapporteur for Migrants Rights, said hostile attitudes towards migrants in Britain were ‘utter bull****’, and based on ‘fantasy’ of preserving a 2,000 year-old culture.
The Canadian was accused of ‘offensive bigotry’ over his remarks, which also included an apparent endorsement of New Labour’s mass migration policies. And he even appeared to accuse ministers of letting migrants die by not supporting
‘He is talking utter baloney’
search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean.
His comments are only the latest in a string of attacks from UN officials on government policy in recent years.
Mr Crepeau made the comments in an interview with the i newspaper. ‘The fantasy is that there is a core British culture that was created probably 2,000 years ago and carried on,’ he said. ‘And now it’s being threatened by all those barbarians that are coming to our gate. This is utter bull****, but who is going to say this?’
Tory MP Dominic Raab said Mr Crepeau’s attack amounted to ‘offensive bigotry’. ‘Monsieur Crepeau is aping the very prejudice he is sup- posed to be fighting,’ he added. Mr Crepeau also criticised the Government’s decision not to join in further search and rescue operations for African migrants.
Ministers withdrew support amid reports people-traffickers were using it as a ‘taxi service’ and encouraging more migrants to attempt the hazardous crossing from North Africa.
‘When politicians are saying, “We should not do search and rescue because it encourages other people to come”, this is an extremely cynical way of putting it,’ said Mr Crepeau. ‘Not supporting search and rescue operations means letting them die.’
He was speaking ahead of a ‘factfinding’ mission to Italy, where 150,000 migrants were picked up from the sea in the past year
In apparent praise for Tony Blair’s government, he said it was a ‘multicultural, diverse, open society’ which created Cool Britannia in the 1990s.
He added: ‘If Britannia is ruled by the Ukip, or with Ukip-type policies, it is not going to be cool.’
Ukip leader Nigel Farage told the Telegraph: ‘He is talking utter baloney. He is just not living in the real world.’
In September last year Brazilian Raquel Rolnik, the UN Special Rapporteur on housing, produced what was condemned as a ‘misleading Marxist diatribe’ about housing and welfare reforms.
In April, the UN’s Rashida Manjoo, a South African feminist academic, said sexism in Britain was the worst in the world.