Race equality chief warns of ethnic 'cold war'

Uncontrolled immigration has led to a "cold war" between ethnic communities, according to the head of Britain's race watchdog.Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), believes the policy failures risk engendering racism among millions of educated professionals.

Mr Phillips set out his concerns yesterday in an address to mark the 40th anniversary of Enoch Powell's notorious "rivers of blood" speech – in which the Tory frontbencher warned of disastrous social consequences if immigration levels were not reduced. He was speaking in the same Birmingham hotel where Mr Powell inflamed the debate in 1968.

While Mr Phillips stressed that the dire predictions had not come true and immigration has not been too high, he said the influx has had worrying effects.

"We have seen the emergence of a kind of cold war in some parts of the country, where very separate communities exist side by side... with poor communication across racial or religious lines," he said.

"Powell so discredited any talk of planning or control that it gave rise to a migration policy in which government knew too little about what was going on.

"Ironically, Powellism and the weakening of control it engendered may have led Britain to admitting more immigrants rather than fewer."

Mr Phillips warned Ministers they are boosting anti-immigration parties such as the BNP by failing to respond to reasonable concerns from large sections of the "settled" population.

"For every professional woman who is able to go out to work because she has a Polish nanny, there is a young mother who watches her child struggle in a classroom where a harassed teacher faces too many children with too many languages between them," he said.

"Wanting a better deal for her child doesn't make her anti-immigrant. But if we can't find a better answer to her despair then she soon will be.

"For every boss whose bacon is saved by the importation of skilled IT professionals or craftspeople or health professionals, there are a thousand people who wonder every morning why they have to put up with the misery of a packed railway carriage or bus.

"Wanting an infrastructure that doesn't make getting to work daily hell doesn't make someone a natural voter for an anti-immigrant party. But it soon will."

Shadow home secretary David Davis said: "Mr Phillips raises a brave and timely warning and points out the consequences of a disastrous loss of immigration controls. It has had adverse consequences for public services, housing and community relations."

But Immigration Minister Liam Byrne said: "The British public is right to demand changes to Britain's immigration system. That is why 2008 sees the biggest changes for 45 years including a points system like the one in Australia, a single border force, compulsory ID cards for foreign nationals and the reintroduction for a system to count people in and out of Britain."

nThousands of people from the Bangladeshi, Indian, Pakistani, Turkish and Chinese communities gathered in Trafalgar Square yesterday to voice fears that the changes to the immigration laws, will reduce the amount of skilled cooks and chefs coming to the UK.

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