US voice adds unwelcome echo to immigration debate

David Blunkett's proposals for immigrants to become more assimilated with British culture have found a new, and probably deeply unwelcome, advocate in Pat Buchanan, the former US presidential candidate regularly excoriated for his extreme rightwing views.

Rehearsing a familiar theme from his three bids for the presidency, Mr Buchanan claims in a book published this week that Britain and the rest of Europe will be overwhelmed by a wave of "Islamic-Arab-African" immigration. Citing birth rate statistics - falling in the west and rising in Islamic countries - he says Britain could have a majority non-white population by the end of the century. In London it will happen by the end of the decade.

The populist and inflammatory views of Mr Buchanan, who was once dubbed a "flirter with fascism" for his defence of accused Nazis, have been variously described as verging on the racist, anti-Semitic, xenophobic and homophobic. In his last campaign for the Reform party, after his split from the Republicans, he attracted the support of far right organisations and white supremacist groups including the American Friends of the British National Party.

Promoting his book, The Death of the West: How Mass Immigration, Depopulation & a Dying Faith are Killing our Culture and Country, Mr Buchanan supported Mr Blunkett on the question of immigrants having to learn English.

"They should be told: 'You're coming to our country. You want to be a member of our family. We have certain mores, traditions, customs, history, heroes. This is who we are. This is not a flop house. This is a nation.'"