BBC says sorry to MP for 'xenophobia' comment

The BBC has apologised and retrospectively edited a segment of Radio 4's Thought for the Day after the head of a refugee foundation described Robert Jenrick's comments about asylum seekers as "xenophobia".

- Aletha Adu Peter Walker Diane Taylor

The remarks by Dr Krish Kandiah, a theologian who heads the Sanctuary Foundation, prompted an angry response from Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary. The BBC said it had removed "some of the language used" from a version posted online, saying it was not appropriate for the faith-based radio segment.

However, Alf Dubs, the Labour peer who came to the UK from Prague as a child fleeing the Nazis, said he believed xenophobia was an accurate description of Jenrick's comments at the weekend in the Mail on Sunday, in which he said the arrival of asylum seekers on small boats made him fear for his daughters' safety, and that he would not want them to be neighbours.

Speaking on yesterday's episode of the Today programme, Kandiah said: "[Jenrick] said: 'I certainly don't want my children to share a neighbourhood with men from backward countries who broke into Britain illegally, and about whom we know next to nothing.' These words echo a fear many have absorbed. Fear of the stranger. The technical name for this is xenophobia."