Letwin wants renewed status for Sikhs

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Letwin wants renewed status for Sikhs Sep 14 2003

Shadow Home Secretary Oliver Letwin is to visit the National Sikh Convention, and is due to praise the religion's ideals of service to the community and neighbourly society.

Mr Letwin, who was attending the event at the Guru Nanak Gurdwara in Blakenhall, Wolverhampton, was also expected to call for the Commission for Racial Equality to monitor Sikhs as a separate ethnic group.

The three-day conference, which started on Friday, is on course to attract more than 10,000 of the UK's 600,000-strong Sikh community.

The creation of a new Sikh Federation and a National Council of Gurdwaras was announced on the opening day of the conference.

The Federation is billed as the first Sikh political party in the UK, but will not field candidates in local, national or European elections, instead lobbying existing parties to promote the interests of it members.

Mr Letwin was due to tell delegates: "Sikhs now constitute one of the most numerous and most economically active ethnic groups in the countrytheir contribution to business and to many professions is enormous.

"It is very surprising that the Commission for Racial Equality, and the present Government, continue to refuse to acknowledge Sikhs as a grouping worthy of recognition along with other ethnic minorities.

"The Conservative Party will continue to campaign, as it has done over the past two years, for such recognition.

"And we will also continue in our struggle to ensure that the British National Party, which has made Sikhs the target of outrageous vilification, does not make any fu

rther political progress in Britain."