Press Office

Aired: Sunday, 10 April, 2005 10:00
Sunday With Adam Boulton, Sky News

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10th April 2005.

 

Interview with the Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, Trevor Phillips.

 

Any excerpts used to be attributed to Sky News’ ‘Sunday with Adam Boulton’ programme.

Adam Boulton – I’m a little bit confused about your attitude towards this debate on immigration because I read pieces by you saying you welcomed a discussion but you also used the word “sickening” about the discussion so far so which is it?

Trevor Phillips – Well I think the basic point here is, immigration is an important issue but it doesn’t have to be divisive. You don’t need to racialise it. What I do think is that we do need to have a proper discussion on how we manage immigration but we don’t need to turn it into a race row and actually the truth is, most of the parties have the same position, everyone agrees we need immigration for our economic prosperity but we need to manage it properly to sustain our social stability. I think everybody, at least most of the leading politicians adopted the CRE’s proposal that there should be a points system so that, unlike the past were we concentrated on where people came from and who their grand parents were we now focus on what we as a country need in terms of economic skills and so forth and we judge immigrants on that basis.

AB – But you see, do you think you can have this pure debate, I mean I appreciate that people such as yourselves who are experts on it can, but when the conservatives for example have the slogan “are you thinking what we’re thinking?”, isn’t there an implicit connection there to racial issues as well as immigration issues?

TP – Well I am slightly puzzled by the emphasis the conservatives and some others are taking on the issue of, is it racist to talk about immigration because I guess I am the referee on what is racist and what is not racist, and we haven’t suggested at all that it is racist to talk about immigration and in fact we have encouraged parties to talk responsibly about it because we think it is such an important issue for the economical prosperity of the country. It seems to me that as long as people stick at working out what will benefit Britain when it comes to immigration rather than one of the pressure groups, one of the anti immigration pressure groups, have suggested that all immigration, all black people and so on are bad, then we are fine.

AB – Now you see we have had you writing to the parties giving them warnings, also Ann Dawson Shepard of the UN commission for refugees writing to them, warning against xenophobic and political opportunism. You are saying you don’t see that?

TP – I don’t see that at the moment. As long as everybody focuses on what immigration is for, how it benefits the country, how you control it, how you keep our social stability and so on, rather than getting in to this argument that all immigration is destabilizing, immigrants are a flood and all of this kind of silly language and offensive language.

AB – Which has been used by whom? I haven’t seen anything.

TP – Well I see this morning that migration watch, that pressure group which purports to know about immigration has essentially been saying that ethnic minorities…

AB – They say that those figures are never challenged.

TP – We challenge them a lot and indeed I had Sir Andrew Green, their boss, in front of me at the greater London assembly and reduced him to silence so I think the idea that there is statistics are holy writ is nonsense. The basic point though that they seem to be making is that immigration in itself is bad, it is destabilizing, and that is just not true. It is an insult to the ethnic minorities that have been coming here for the last 50 years who have helped to build up the NHS, have helped to rebuild London and so on that somehow when we come here things are bad.

AB – But there is concern about it, if you look at the issues that matter to people in the election campaign, immigration by and large is in the top 5.

TP – I have no qualms about that.

AB – Do you agree it should be in the top 5?

TP – Absolutely, it is an important issue, I have no qualms about that and I think it is an important discussion but to have that discussion in context. We know that we need continued immigration but we know it is not a straightforward matter of people turn up, they take a job, everyone’s happy. We know that there are frictions that arrive and tat is why the Commission for Racial Equality and bodies like us exist. To try and ensure that immigrants are integrated, now if we have that conversation it is a worthwhile one, it is a difficult one, but a worthwhile one. What is not a worthwhile conversation is a vague conversation which says, there are too many immigrants, vaguely without saying who they are or what they are.

AB – But in a sense isn’t that how people whatever their background respond to a situation that they feel for good or bad, their community is changing.

TP – Absolutely but the city we live in Adam is a third ethnic minority. Most of those people are people whose parents have come here since the war. This is not a city that is teeming with racial hostility and tension; it’s a city which has been built on diversity. That is not the case all over the country so we have got work to do I agree with that, but it means political leaders have to put that work honestly and in context.

AB – And in the end it is a worthwhile, sensible way to approach this to say, look, lets police our borders and let’s have a quota effectively on the amount we take in? I mean most people run their households in that way.

TP – Well that’s 2 different things. We need to police out borders properly. The issue of the quota, it seems to me is rather fuzzy and people need to be clear what they are saying. If they are saying let’s bring down the number of immigrants than actually we need to look at where they are coming from. The biggest group of people coming into this country are from the EU. If you are looking at reducing the amount of people coming in to the country then you are into much bigger issues than just simply policing the borders.

AB – So just on a campaign so far, all we have heard so far from Charles Waddle and the conservatives and from labour and the liberal democrats, you are not sickened yet?

TP – I am not sickened yet. I think people are being pretty sensible but I don’t want people to simply talk loosely about this, loosely talk about numbers. If you say let’s bring down the numbers, talk about how you are going to do it and where it is coming from, and do not leave a vacuum in the air for people to say, actually when they are talking about immigration that are actually talking about keeping out black and brown people. Be clear who you are talking about and so far it is ok. We are watching.

AB – Trevor Phillips thank you very much indeed.

End of Interview