Letter: Tebbit's Britain

Sir: Lord Tebbit's remarks reflect Britain's need to confront the consequences of its own meddlesome creation of false "multicultural" countries in the name of empire.

A country like Nigeria, forcibly amalgamated in 1914 into a "multicultural" colony served the purposes of the imperial state. The different nations were bludgeoned into submission.

We did not ask to be lumped by imperial fiat in an association of strange bedfellows. Britain's multiculturalism was self-created. It was the result of a nation's craving for the lucre of overseas dependencies, with which come excess baggage.

For Lord Tebbit to bicker about it without placing the issues in context is further to alienate ethnic communities from the Tory party and raise the spectre of forcible repatriation. Yet as all sensible people know, a new Britain cannot be born from its imperial past. It will be born out of the creativity of all its inhabitants and its birth is being overseen by Tony Blair.

MICHAEL O BANJO

London SE16