Former Home Secretary's 'Romaphobia' storm - the Guardian, the BBC and the Mail

 David Blunkett in riot warning over Roma migrants

EXTRAORDINARY 1 – Former Home Secretary and well-loved leftie David Blunkett fears that tensions between local people and Roma migrants in his town of Sheffield could escalate into rioting unless action is taken to improve integration, David Blunkett has warned.

EXTRAORDINARY 2: Story run, relatively straight, in the BBC

EXTRAORDINARY 3: His comments are dismissed as ‘fuelling Romaphobia’ in the Guardian.

PREDICTABLE: The Daily Mail reports Pakistani community members in Sheffield are organising patrols to ‘educate the Roma about British ways and not littering the streets’!

The former home secretary fears a repeat of race riots that hit northern cities in 2001.

David Blunkett’s concerns centre on the Page Hall area of Sheffield, where Roma migrants from Slovakia have set up.  But, in an interview with BBC Radio Sheffield, he also accused the government of "burying their head in the sand" over the scale of Roma settlement in the UK.

He said the Roma community had to make more of an effort to fit in with British culture.  "We have got to change the behaviour and the culture of the incoming community, the Roma community, because there's going to be an explosion otherwise. We all know that."

"If everything exploded, if things went really wrong, the community would obviously be devastated. We saw this in Bradford, Burnley and Oldham all those years ago when I first became home secretary. We saw that the community itself were the losers."

He called on the Roma community in Page Hall to change aspects of their "behaviour", such as congregating on the streets on summer evenings and dumping litter, which he said was "aggravating" local people.

"We've got to be tough and robust in saying to people you are not in a downtrodden village or woodland, because many of them don't even live in areas where there are toilets or refuse collection facilities. You are not there any more, you are here - and you've got to adhere to our standards, and to our way of behaving, and if you do then you'll get a welcome and people will support you."

Mr Blunkett said the local population in Page Hall, which he said was made up of people with "Pakistani backgrounds, Somali, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Yemeni and traditional white working class" also had to make an effort to reach out to the Roma community.

"By all means express how you feel but do something with us. Join the people who are doing something about it," he told them.

The MP said "phenomenal" progress was being made by community groups to improve integration in Page Hall but the government's decision to axe Labour's Migration Impact Fund - a £50m pot for councils to ease pressure on housing, schools and hospitals - was hampering these efforts.

"We are not asking for a lot of money. We are just asking for a bit of understanding from government. A bit of interest. The government's just not interested. It's absolutely pivotal to holding this community together."

And he accused the government of "burying their head in the sand" over the size of the Roma community living in the UK, which he said was revealed in a recent study by Salford University.

"They [the government] have been saying there is less than 50,000 Roma in England. The Salford study shows that at a very conservative estimate, there's over 200,000. That they constitute a very large minority, with real problems."

He suggested the government's refusal to officially acknowledge the scale of Roma settlement in the UK was preventing it from accessing EU funds to aid integration - a point echoed by Sylvia Ingmire, chief executive of the Roma Support Group charity.

Mr Blunkett's words were praised by UKIP leader Nigel Farage, who campaigns against the ending of some work restrictions for migrants from Romania and Bulgaria, both with significant Roma populations.

He said: "Mr Blunkett should be admired for the courage he has shown by speaking so plainly on this issue. Of course, the type of language he has used I would have been utterly condemned for using.

"The fact that he is talking of the significant difficulties with the Roma population already in his constituency should be taken seriously by the likes of Cameron, Clegg and Miliband.

"My question is if they won't listen to the dangers of opening the door to Romania and Bulgaria next year when UKIP speak out on it, will they listen to David Blunkett? I certainly hope so."

·         Mr Blunkett later issued a statement distancing himself from Mr Farage's endorsement, stressing he had been talking about the need for better integration.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24909979