Immigrants? We sent out search parties to get them to come... and made it hard for Britons to get work, says Mandelson

Labour sent out ‘search parties’ for immigrants to get them to come to the UK, Lord Mandelson has admitted.

In a stunning confirmation that the Blair and Brown governments deliberately engineered mass immigration, the former Cabinet Minister and spin doctor said New Labour sought out foreign workers.

He also conceded that the influx of arrivals meant the party’s traditional supporters are now unable to find work.

By contrast, Labour leader Ed Miliband has said his party got it wrong on immigration but has refused to admit it was too high under Labour.

Between 1997 and 2010, net migration to Britain totalled more than 2.2million, more than twice the population of Birmingham.

The annual net figure quadrupled under Labour from 48,000 people in 1997 to 198,000 by 2009.

Lord Mandelson’s remarks come three years after Labour officials denied claims by former adviser Andrew Neather that they deliberately encouraged immigration in order to change the make-up of Britain.

Mr Neather said the policy was designed to ‘rub the Right’s nose in diversity’.  He said there was ‘a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural’.

Senior Labour figures have been reluctant to concede they deliberately engineered the influx of migrants who have transformed communities over the past decade.

But, at a rally for the Blairite think-tank Progress, Lord Mandelson said: ‘In 2004 when as a Labour government, we were not only welcoming people to come into this country to work, we were sending out search parties for people and encouraging them, in some cases, to take up work in this country.’

He said: ‘The problem has grown during the period of economic stagnation over the last five, six years.’

When Labour encouraged new arrivals ‘we were almost ... a full employment economy’ but, he admitted: ‘The situation is different obviously now.

‘We have to just realise... entry to the labour market of many people of non-British origin is hard for people who are finding it very difficult to find jobs, who find it hard to keep jobs.

‘For these people immigration tends to loom large in their lives and in their worlds, now that is an inescapable fact, and we have to understand it, address it, engage with people in discussion about it.’

Mr Mandelson's admission that New Labour sought out foreign workers is a stunning confirmation that governments led by Tony Blair, left, and Gordon Brown, right, deliberately engineered mass immigration

His words are far franker than Mr Miliband’s. Asked earlier this month whether ‘too many people were allowed to come’, he replied: ‘I wouldn’t put it that way, no.’

Tory chairman Grant Shapps said: ‘Peter Mandelson’s candid admission that Labour were purposefully letting immigration spiral out of control when in government is yet another damning indictment on their record on immigration.’

Sir Andrew Green of Migration Watch said: ‘This is an astonishing admission from the highest level that Labour’s mass immigration policy was entirely deliberate.

‘It will be a very long time before their own working class supporters thank them for the enormous changes that have been imposed on their communities.’

Gordon Brown yesterday accused the Tories of emulating Enoch Powell by using immigration to head off the growing electoral threat from UKIP.

Mr Powell’s 1968 ‘rivers of blood’ speech ignited huge controversy in the debate on immigration.

Former prime minister Mr Brown – who once called for ‘British jobs for British workers’ – told a pro-union rally in Glasgow: ‘A party that was anti-Powellite on immigration is now becoming very close to being Powellite on that issue.’

SOURCE






A fifth of murder and rape suspects in Britain born abroad

A fifth of rape and murder suspects in the UK last year were foreign nationals.  Figures showed a total of 93 people were charged with murder and 632 with rape.

The statistics of suspects born abroad compares to the overall numbers of 555 murder suspects and 3,436 murder suspects.

A survey of 43 English and Welsh police forces showed that just one failed to record any rape or murder charges against a non-UK citizen, The Sun reported.

More than a third of the 210 rape suspects charged in London last year were immigrants.  Out of the 180 murder suspects in the capital 41 were from foreign.  In the capital 24 were from Jamaica, 14 from Nigeria, 13 from Poland and ten from Portugal.

In Suffolk, 75 per cent of suspects charged with murder were immigrants.

Cumbria had a similarly high rate, with 63 per cent of murder suspects being foreigners.

But in rural Wales, Dyfed-Powys Police had no record of a rape or murder charge against a foreigner, The Sun reported.

Hampshire refused to reveal nationalities of eight foreigners charged with rape, explaining it would lead to ethnic victimisation.

The figures did not reveal how many were convicted or cleared, The Sun reported.

The latest YouGov survey showed 57 per cent of people named immigration as being among the top three issues facing the country, its highest level since June 2010 and up 11 per cent on a year ago.

The Prime Minister and his deputy promised an Immigration Bill to 'clamp down on those from overseas who abuse our public services' in the Queen's Speech last week.

Extra focus has fallen on plans to deal with the impact of immigration in the wake of the rise of UKIP, which took almost one in four votes in last week’s local elections.

The Immigration Bill aims to build on the coalition’s success, which has already seen the number of migrants fall by a third since 2010.

Figures in February showed that one in 12 people blames rape victims for their own fate if they flirt with their attacker or if they are drunk at the time they are raped, official figures reveal.

Around 2million people suffered domestic abuse in England or Wales last year, according to statistics - down by half since 1995.

The group most at risk from sexual assault and violence consists of women under the age of 25, with women who have separated from their husbands also disproportionately likely to be victims.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics suggest that six per cent of people think rape victims are to blame when they are drunk, and eight per cent criticise victims who are under the influence of drugs.

SOURCE