Race relations expert Sir Herman Ouseley has singled out the cancellation of the Bradford Festival finale as a crucial factor in the riots.

Sir Herman said the move had given the signal to Asians to prepare for the clashes and was an acknowledgement that the National Front was arriving.

The former head of the Commission for Racial Equality, also chairman of a report due out this Thursday into race relations in the district, likened the weekend's clashes to those in Brixton, south London, in 1985.

He said: "There are a number of factors involved in what happened in Bradford, including whether the police involved young people in the cancellation of a big cultural event.

"If the police said they could not maintain public control then there is an issue for the event to be banned.

"But when this happened it was indication that they had lost control.

"The indication was that the NF was coming and therefore people got tooled up as they did in Burnley, Oldham and has happened in Bradford in the past."

Sir Herman is due to visit Bradford on Wednesday and said conversations yesterday with people on the ground revealed the community was "horrified at the scale and intensity" of the violence.

He also warned leaders not to just label the events as criminal and ignore underlying problems.

"We are seeing the demonisation of Asian men in the same way as black men were demonised in the 1980s by the media," he said.

"Clearly there were many incidents of criminality but if you do not look deep at the reasons for this and the impacts of pushing people to the margins of society, as happened in Brixton, then that is perilous to the future of society.

"There are underlying issues that cannot be ignored."

Bradford's Lord Mayor Councillor Ghazanfer Khaliq who has made good race relations the theme for his year of office said: "I deplore this violence and vandalism and my sympathies go to the victims of violence and to the police.

"Here we are trying to build good race relations. That has been my theme and this makes life more difficult. I will continue to try to bring the communities together.

"There are a lot of good people in Bradford and they need to come more forward now and we need to drive out people who have caused trouble."

Council Leader Margaret Eaton said that city streets could have become a "blood bath" if the Festival finale had taken place on Saturday as planned. And in a stinging attack, she branded MP Terry Rooney's comments over the "spineless" decision to axe the Festival finale as "immature".

"What would have happened if 3,500 people had come? The insurance company wouldn't have insured the event, and I think Terry Rooney needs to take a more mature approach.

"It would've been a blood bath, it's hard enough for the police to contain what went on, let alone look after families and children."

Former Lord Mayor Mohammed Ajeeb said he believed the events of the weekend had set the city back ten years in terms of race relations.

"The damage (to race relations) is very serious. I was hopeful relations between youths and police had improved but that hasn't been demonstrated, it still appears to be very fragile."

Underlying causes included socioeconomic deprivations. "There's a strong sense of insecurity, desperation and frustration among the youths," he said.

He feared the trouble would spread with a backlash across the city and urged an approach of working together.

He said: "We shouldn't give up hope. Obviously there are problems but we need to reassess the situation and try to address some of the issues."

Manawar JanKhan, spokesman for the Manningham Residents' Association, said the way to avoid further rioting was not to bring out a weighty report that had happened before. He said the £9.7 million extra cash awarded to Manningham and Girlington since the last disturbance had been a flop because "it had not had an impact on the lives of people living in Manningham".

Organisations like the MRA which criticised the status quo were denounced as subversive, he said, when they just wanted to give a voice to locals. "This is just deja vu," he said. "We don't want to say 'I told you so', but we have said time and time again that you need to involve Manningham residents. There aren't enough jobs. There are graduates who can't find work in Bradford, they have to move away, and they are taking out their anger on local businesses who won't employ them. There's a lot of anger against white employers. White businesses have been targeted like the pubs and Lister's garage.

"If we're not careful Manningham will become a ghetto businesses won't want to be there and Asians who do well will move on. Only the really poor and deprived will be left."

John Pennington, owner of Penningtons night club in Mannigham, was surprised at the lack of police presence on Oak Lane.

"There was total lawlessness, particularly at the BMW garage. At that stage there were wasn't a single policeman about. I went to find out where they were and when I got to City Hall there were hundreds of them and they were totally inactive."

The Reverend George Moffat, team Rector of Manningham, based at St Paul's was on the streets as the riots took place.

"Everyone is stunned, shocked and appalled at what's happened," he said.

"If it makes the people in parliament realise what's happening in northern towns we may be able to move forward."

Reverend Geoff Reid from the Touchstone Methodist Centre in Merton Road said that the city looked "like something out of Beirut" and that therewere still lessons to be learned about inter-racial harmony in Bradford.

"This was hinted at in the housing report. We need sober thought about the separateness of the community. I have my suspicions we may see the Home Office appear on a flying visit, but we need a long term discussion about the future of the area."