Tony Blair says Poles are not racist and intolerant

Which rather contradicts what the Head of UK’ Commission for Racial Equality, Trevor Philips, said last month.

Blair said today in a speech calling for more tolerance from recent immigrants coming to the UK, who he sees as yet another ‘threat to our way of life’.

"It is not a problem with Britons of Hindu, Afro-Caribbean, Chinese or Polish origin. Nor is it a problem with the majority of the Muslim community [but] a new and virulent form of ideology associated with a minority of our Muslim community".

Though appearing to give the Poles a clean bill of health, Blair seems to think that the UK’s problems come from outside, from crazy mullahs indoctrinating our kids.

His speech from Downing Street then takes a convoluted turn. In a speech about immigrants and their supposed intolerance to other faiths, etc, Blair started going on about the 7/7 bombers, which were second or third generation immigrants, born and bred in northern England. Washing Post quotes him saying:

"Their emphasis was not on shared values but separate ones, values based on a warped distortion of the faith of Islam," Blair said. "It has thrown into sharp relief, the nature of what we have called, with approval, 'multicultural Britain.'"

He said that the London attacks had caused, for the first time in a generation, "an unease, an anxiety, even at points _ a resentment," about Britain's tradition of offering refuge to people from across the globe and allowing people of all religions to practice their faith.

He said money allocated to faith groups would now be tightly controlled, called on all faith schools to team up with schools teaching a different religion and hailed laws that require preachers arriving in Britain from overseas to be able to speak English.

The last bit is very bizarre. If preachers arriving from Britain can’t speak English then that makes them a lot less able to influence ‘our kids’.

A very confused speech by Blair, which tries to sidestep the fact that it is indeed something about multiculturalism and a lack of a uniting value system in the UK that might just be to blame for Britain’s problems. But at least the supposedly racist Poles get left out it this time.