A stain on our British way of life

I entirely agree with Michael Howard. There is much (though there has been much more) pressure in Cambridge to suggest that we should ignore the rise of the BNP and the 'far-right' as to engage them is to credit their views. The Student Union imposed a 'No Platform' policy which was a travesty for free speech. The truth is that their diabolical, albeit limited, success in local elections demands us to turn our attentions into showing them up for the detritus of society that they really are. If you have a stain you do not and cannot ignore it. You scrub it out of existence. First we have to convince everyone in this country that the BNP and National Front are the obnoxious stain on our country that they truly are. Bravo Michael Howard!

UPDATE:

And bravo Stephen Pollard. One of the most sensible articles on asylum and this issue that I have read in a long, long time.

UPDATED UPDATE:

Having re-read Stephen Pollard's article in detail (which I was remiss in not doing before) I do still agree with the main thrust of what he says but would like to distance myself from one aspect.

"We must be explicit that productive immigrants are good, and that unproductive immigrants are bad."

Unproductive migrants are not necessarily bad. There is a need for us to offer genuine asylum. With regards to pure economic migrants I would never say that they are 'bad'. We should, however, focus on the positive aspects of many immigrants and try to maximise these. There is a danger that an advance of this argument will be used as a refinement of a discredited 'all immigrants are scroungers' argument. What I most agreed with was Stephen's demand for a sensible debate which didn't descend to racial slurs...