Far right rule would deny us chance to grow.

Byline: Paul Fulford

PAY no attention to the compassion and care that Mary Seacole gave to Britain's gravely wounded troops in the Crimea.

Take away the comedy of Lenny Henry and the music of artistes as diverse as Dizzee Rascal, Beverley Knight and Shirley Bassey.

Discard the sporting achievements of athletes such as Linford Christie, Daley Thompson, Tessa Sanderson, Ashia Hansen and Denise Lewis.

Don't be swayed by the acting of Shobna Gulati or Art Malik nor the literature of Monica Ali. Dismiss the contributions to this country's commerce of Lakshmi Mittal and Paul Bassi and don't consider the that Britain's health service relies so heavily countless non-white doctors and nurses.

And forget that many sectors of our economy depend on those whose ethnic background isn't the same as mine. And that our armed forces have long relied heavily on those with ancestral roots in the Indian sub-continent or Caribbean.

Instead let's nurse a festering hatred of all things we perceive to be "non-British" - even though we'd struggle to define this emotive, empty and muddled term were we to be pressed.

Then, perhaps, we might begin to understand the warped and confused thinking that drives blustering Nick Griffin and those other hateful barbarians of the British National Party.

But, first, reflect on how poorer this country would be without successive generations of immigrants - the successive waves of Jewish settlers from the 11th century to the 20th, the weavers from the Low Countries 500 years ago, the Hugenots, the Chinese, the Italians, the Poles who in the Second World War helped the fight against Hitler's vile Nazism.

As is the way in a world in which national borders have never been water-tight, all enriched and subtly changed our country.

But, in the Britain envisaged by those on the far right, our country would be denied the chance to grow and develop.

It's a philosophy that I detest based on a world view which I don't recognise.

Of course, those on the far right - fond of waging a spurious class war as well as a racist one - might claim that is because I'm fortunate enough to live a comfortable middle-class existence and, it's true, I long ago moved from the Erdington council estate on which I grew up. But I don't travel round the city in a sedan chair, its velvet curtains drawn to protect me from the commotion outside.

Truth is, this is largely a tolerant city in which those of different colours and beliefs have long existed in harmony.

The BNP may seek to convince you otherwise, but have a hidden agenda for doing so. Far better to confine the rhetoric of these Holocaust-deniers to a bin marked "toxic waste" and instead rely on the evidence of your own eyes and ears.

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