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Daily Mail
June 7, 2014
A senior Tory sparked a fresh row about immigration yesterday after branding some of her own constituents ‘racist’ for raising concerns about it.
Defence minister Anna Soubry, who is tipped for promotion to the Cabinet, said many voters were ignorant about its ‘hugely important’ benefits – while others were ‘frankly racist’.
UKIP last night seized on the remarks as evidence that senior Tories still fail to understand public anger over the issue.
Miss Soubry’s comments came as Chancellor George Osborne suggested David Cameron would fail to keep his pledge to cut net immigration to the ‘tens of thousands’ because of the difficulty of controlling the numbers arriving from Europe.
She added to doubts about whether the target would be hit – but called on the Tory leadership to be more positive about the benefits of immigration, claiming migrants come to Britain ‘overwhelmingly to work – they do not come here to scrounge’.
Miss Soubry, who is defending a majority of just 389 in her hyper-marginal constituency in Broxtowe, Nottinghamshire, told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show: ‘When you make the case with people who come and see me in my constituency surgery who say, “I’m really worried about immigration” you say really, why?
‘This is Broxtowe. We don’t have a problem with immigrants. When you explain that to them, they get it. Not all of them – some people have prejudices, some people are frankly racist, but there are many who just don’t know the argument.’
Her comments carry echoes of the row during the last election, when former PM Gordon Brown was forced to apologise to Rochdale pensioner Gillian Duffy after being caught on a microphone branding her a ‘bigoted woman’.
UKIP MEP Louise Bours last night called Miss Soubry’s remarks ‘appallingly arrogant’, adding: ‘The political establishment has tried to close down debate about immigration for years by branding people racists for raising legitimate concerns.
‘Just when you think a genuine, moderate debate about immigration is getting underway a Tory minister starts calling her own constituents racist.
‘It is such a terrible, superior attitude to say to your own voters that if you don’t agree with me, you’re a racist.’
