The British Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, yesterday fought off an attack from the general secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union, Mr Bill Morris, that the British government has fostered racism by its handling of asylum and immigration issues, insisting he was "genuinely mystified" by the accusation.
Mr Morris, a key supporter of the Prime Minister, Mr Blair, charged the government with creating a "climate of fear" through its efforts to adopt a firm but fair policy toward illegal asylum-seekers and immigrants. Reckless language used by government ministers had created an atmosphere in which racists attacked ethnic minorities, and Mr Morris called on the government to dampen down the language used in the asylum debate.
"We have heard words like bogus, we have heard different words about people coming in as economic migrants," Mr Morris said. "The mood music we have listened to has created a climate of fear. That culture is manifesting itself in young people being set alight in the street, the fiance of one of our black athletes has been brutally attacked, and so it goes on." He also described the government's voucher scheme payments instead of cash payments to refugees and asylum-seekers as "insane".
But the Home Secretary insisted he was proud of the government's record on race relations. Pointing to reforms introduced since the publication of the Macpherson report into the racist murder of the teenager, Stephen Lawrence, he said the government was committed to improving race relations. Mr Straw said he was "unapologetic" over measures introduced to tackle abuse of refugee laws. "It is a very, very serious problem, because of those 70,000 who came in last year, probably between 20-30 per cent will be found to have a well-founded case, and the rest unfounded."
The damage to the government was compounded, however, when the Labour MP, Ms Diane Abbott, said many people felt the asylum issue was inextricably linked to the government's race policy.