This is something I got through a tweet from 5CC or Tabloid Watch, but Osama Saeed jogged my memory about it. An election campaign card which was used by Phil Woolas during his (successful) campaign against the Lib Dems in Oldham in May has just come to light in which he claims that the Lib Dems “plan to give hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants the right to stay”. The brightly coloured A6-sized card is illustrated with an image of the Danish cartoon demo with banners saying “behead those who insult Islam” and similar slogans.

The wording on the card reads:

Extremists are trying to hijack this election. They want you to vote Lib Dem to punish Phil for being strong on immigration. The Lib Dems plan to give hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants the right to stay. It is up to you. Do you want the extremists to win?

The card could, as one of Osama’s friends said, could have come from the BNP. It is clearly intended to associate immigration, illegal or otherwise, with Muslim extremism as it already exists in this country, as if to say “let immigrants in (let alone Muslim immigrants) and before long they’ll be destroying our freedom”. Extremism is a home-grown problem; with the exception of a handful of dissidents given shelter here who then proceeded to cause trouble (and who are mostly now in jail or out of the country), it’s not something that can be blamed on immigrants.

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