Race hatred has been an ever-present part of British society for most of the second half of this century, since the start of mass immigration in the 1950s. Most of the time it has remained hidden, bubbling under. But at various times over the years it has burst to the surface and manifested itself in the form of demonstrations and marches.

In recent years there has been a growing incidence of specific, personal race violence aimed at individuals, who have suffered at best verbal abuse and at worst serious physical attacks which have sometimes led to murder.

And throughout all this period, lurking mostly in the shadows, there have been the extreme Right-wing neo-Nazi groups which, though only a small minority, have made a lot of noise about their beliefs and have threatened to act on them.

While their dangerous posturing has, rightly, been largely dismissed by the general public, there has always been an underlying fear that these people just might put their threats into action. Now that appears to have happened with the appalling bombings in Brixton and Brick Lane, there is no choice other than to take them seriously. They appear not to care how many people they put at risk.

It is appalling that they can wreak the kind of carnage London has seen over these last two weekends out of blind hatred for groups of people based purely on the colour of their skin. While no-one wants to give these terrorists the oxygen of publicity, they must be tracked down and stopped before their vile campaign can spread.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.