A BISHOP has branded Mersey MP Frank Field “the new Enoch Powell” – because of his explosive views on curbing immigration.
Peter Selby said the Birkenhead MP’s call for a drastic cut in the number of arrivals into Britain had the “same message” as Powell’s rabble-rousing “rivers of blood” speech four decades ago.
Accusing Mr Field of “barbarism”, the recently retired Bishop of Worcester also gave a warning that the result of such a crackdown would be “more destitute people on the streets and more held in expensive custody”. But the Labour MP has hit back, describing the Rt Rev Selby as part of the “old Liberal elite so frightened of allowing a debate on the levels of immigration”.
The spat has particular poig-nancy because Mr Field is a Church of England worshipper recently appointed a lay canon of Chester Cathedral.
It follows the MP’s call, in part-nership with colourful Tory MP Nicholas Soames, for a “balanced migration” policy, under which the numbers entering and leaving the country would match up.
That would require a big cut in the numbers moving to Britain. Last year, 605,000 did so, while just 406,000 left – a difference of almost 200,000.
Nevertheless, the idea has help-ed shift public debate. The out-spoken immigration minister Phil Woolas advocated a “balanced” approach – before he was gagged by his boss, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.
But, writing in Church Times magazine, the Rt Rev Selby accused Mr Field of getting his facts wrong, while trying to add to the “destitution that the Govern-ment has brought about in order to make Britain less hospitable”.
He wrote: “None of this talk of tough policies is quite as unfam-iliar as we are invited to believe. Mr Woolas and Mr Field may not use the classical rhetoric of Enoch Powell, but the message is the same. Not only that. The period since the ‘rivers of blood’ speech has been marked, not by making it easy to get into Britain, but by the opposite.
“The suggestion that we have an ‘open-door’ policy is outrageous, given the desperate experiences of many would-be immigrants, including many fleeing torture, oppression, and dire poverty.”
But Mr Field said Bishop Selby had “confused levels of immigra-tion with asylum seekers”.
He added: “The Bishop plays the crudest and oldest trick in the book of trying to slur the Enoch Powell tag on Balanced Migration.
“Why is the old Liberal elite so frightened of allowing a debate on the levels of immigration and, more importantly, why do they wish to prevent voters’ views from prevailing?”
Powell’s notorious 1968 speech – in which he warned that unchecked immigration would trigger violence in British cities – led to his sacking from the Tory shadow Cabinet.
