ANTI-ENGLISH DISCRIMINATION

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Anti-English discrimination

On behalf of the English Community Group (Leicester) I wish to thank Nick Knight for his letter regarding our community organisation and asking for evidence concerning how the British state systematically discriminates against the English (Mailbox, February 10).

I wish to list just a few examples:

English ethnicity is excluded in the Census and also from ethnic monitoring forms, essential if the English as an ethnic group are to receive appropriate levels of government funding and policies.The label "White British" not only disenfranchises the English from its legal identity but as an identity based purely on skin colour it provides far less legal protection.

The English have no official bank holiday patron saint's day; no English Parliament; no specific English anthem; no English passport; there is no consultation of the English regarding our inclusion in the European Union and of mass immigration into England.

There is no English Olympic team; English flags are being taken down by councils; local English food produce not marked as English; no original Old English language, history and culture is taught in schools.

English university students are forced to pay full fees while Scottish students receive it free.

The English have higher airport taxes; a health apartheid where English patients are charged for prescriptions while Scottish patients receive theirs free; no English community centres, and where thousands of charities and community groups exist for ethnic minorities, there is only one charity, the Steadfast Trust, for the English.

Finally, to reassure Nick that we are ideologically separate from the English Defence League (EDL), we are focussed entirely upon the needs and concerns of the English community, as opposed to the EDL which is concerned solely with militant Islam.

The EDL does not recognise English ethnicity, preferring to hide behind a false British identity and encompassing a multicultural approach to its movement.

The English Community Group (Leicester) remains a community-orientated and ethnic-specific organisation totally distinct from the EDL.

Clive Potter, chairman, English Community Group (Leicester)