Labour encouraged mass immigration even though it knew that voters opposed it, Whitehall documents confirmed yesterday.
The Government said the public disagreed with immigration because of 'racism' and ministers were told to try to alter public attitudes. The thinking on immigration among Labour leaders was set down in 2000 in a document prepared for the Cabinet Office and the Home Office, but the key passages were suppressed before it was published.
The paper was finally disclosed under freedom of information rules yesterday. It showed that ministers were advised that only the ill-educated and those who had never met a migrant were opposed to immigration. They were also told that large-scale immigration would bring increases in crime, but they concealed these concerns from the public.
Sections of the paper, which underpinned Labour policies that admitted between two and three million immigrants to Britain in less than a decade, have already been made public. These have showed that Labour aimed to use immigration not only for economic reasons but also to change the social make-up of the country.
Fuller details released yesterday showed that Tony Blair's ministers opened the doors to mass migration in knowledge of public opposition and with the view that those who disagreed with them were racists. (Daily Mail)
