In comments that sound like BNP propaganda, the Environment Minister Phil Woolas blamed immigrants from rural Pakistan for a rise in birth defect rates due to the inter-marriage of cousins. Researchers say that the NHS is seeing 9 times the rate of abnormalities from Pakistani children.

Woolas got backing from Ann Cryer, Labour MP for Keighley, who described Pakistani culture as medieval. “This is to do with a medieval culture where you keep wealth within the family… If you go into a paediatric ward in Bradford or Keighley you will find more than half of the kids there are from the Asian community. Since Asians only represent 20%-30% of the population, you can see that they are over represented.”