'Least wanted' list revealed – the 16 banned from Britain

Published on Tuesday 5 May 2009 23:50

SIXTEEN people banned from entering the UK were "named and shamed" by the Home Office yesterday.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said she decided to make public the names of 16 people banned since October so others could better understand what sort of behaviour Britain was not prepared to tolerate.

The list includes hate preachers, anti-gay protesters and a far-right US talk show host.

Ms Smith said: "It's important people understand the values and standards we have here, the fact that it's a privilege to come (to the UK] and the sort of things that mean you won't be welcome in this country.

"If you can't live by the rules we live by, the standards and the values we live by, we should exclude you from this country and, what's more, now we will make public those people that we have excluded.

"We are publishing the names of 16 of those that we have excluded since October. We are telling people who they are and why it is we don't want them in this country."

Ms Smith said the number of people excluded from Britain had risen from an average of two a month to five a month since October.

The list of the 16 "least wanted" includes radio talk show host Michael Savage, real name Michael Weiner.

Ms Smith added: "This is someone who has fallen into the category of fomenting hatred, of such extreme views and expressing them in such a way that it is actually likely to cause inter-community tension or even violence if that person were allowed into the country."

Also named are US baptist pastor Fred Waldron Phelps Snr and his daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper. They have picketed the funerals of Aids victims and claimed the deaths of US soldiers are a punishment for American tolerance of homosexuality.

"If people have so clearly overstepped the mark in terms of the way not just that they are talking but the sort of attitudes they are expressing – to the extent we think this is likely to cause or have the potential to cause violence or inter-community tension in this country – then actually I think the right thing is not to let them into the country in the first place," said Ms Smith, adding: "Not to open the stable door then try to close it later."

The Home Secretary stressed: "It's a privilege to come to this country. There are certain behaviours that mean you forfeit that privilege."

Artur Ryno and Pavel Skachevsky, the former leaders of a violent Russian skinhead gang which committed 20 racially motivated murders, are also banned from coming to Britain. Both are now in prison.

The publication of the list was dismissed as a "gimmick" by the Conservatives. Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said: "What we need from the government is not the gimmick of a name and shame list but a consistent strategy on who can and can't come into the country."

Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: "We already have a series of laws that are perfectly capable of dealing with those who incite violence or racial hatred.

"What the government appears to be doing is creating a sort of 'pre-crime'. We would also ask how effective the measures will be when it is a fact that a person's images and speech can easily be broadcast across borders via the internet.

"It is almost always a very bad idea to allow governments these kinds of arbitrary powers, especially when we have more than sufficient legislation on the statute books to deal with the very situations they claim trying to protect us against."