Is Britain toughening up?
"Muslim groups expressed anger last night after a Labour politician who has been at the centre of a series of race controversies was made Immigration Minister. Phil Woolas, previously an Environment Minister, was handed the brief despite infuriating the Pakistani community earlier this year by warning they were fuelling birth defects by inter-marrying. He also caused anger following the Oldham race riots by calling for 'the reality of anti-white racism' to be acknowledged.
Last night, the Muslim Public Affairs Committee condemned his appointment. A spokesman said: 'Phil Woolas has a track record of insensitive, inappropriate outbursts that have verged on Islamophobia. 'He is a Minister clearly out of his depth. We will monitor his work for any more signs of his all too obvious antipathy towards British Muslims.'
Mr Woolas, the Labour MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth, embarrassed Downing Street in February by arguing that marriages between first cousins are a factor in birth defects and inherited conditions. 'Part of the risk, I am told by the health service, is first-cousin marriages,' he said. 'If you are supportive of the Asian community then you have a duty to raise this issue.' It is estimated that 55 per cent of British Pakistanis are married to first cousins. The likelihood of unrelated couples having children with genetic disorders is about 100-1, but it rises to one in eight for first cousins. British Pakistani children account for as many as one-third of birth defects, despite making up only three per cent of all UK births.
Last year, in an article for The Mail on Sunday, he said: 'Among the groups who are missing out and who suffer genuine discrimination is the white teenage underclass. 'Such people are fashionably dismissed as "chav scum" or "trailer trash". 'But to say such things is to be as guilty of stereotyping as those who say that all Muslims support terrorists.'
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Posted by John Ray.
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