Britain's equalities watchdog warned today of the danger of an anti-immigrant backlash unless the Government takes special action to help the white working class.

Trevor Phillips said that the economic downturn threatened a rise in right-wing extremism if a perception that migrants were taking jobs gained ground.

Speaking to the CBI conference he said it was time for people to open their minds to get a clearer understanding of whom might be disadvantaged in a recession.

He told the meeting that although it had historically been ethnic minorities and women but that today in some parts of the UK the “colour of disadvantage isn’t black or brown its white”.

Mr Phillips, chair of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, highlighted the educational achievement gap between some ethnic minority groups and their white counterparts.

While two thirds of Chinese heritage children routinely get five good GCSE’s as do three out of five Indian heritage youngsters, 85 per cent of poorer white boys did not.

Mr Phillips called for positive action to assist the white working class including measures to improve their education so they can compete with foreign migrants.

He said he wanted to see more white youngsters at universities in London and Birmingham which currently have populations comprising more than 50 per cent minority ethnic students.

Other measures would include creating the equivalent of the ethnic minority educational grant to focus on disadvantaged white youngsters.

Mr Phillips said the best defence against prejudice against immigrants is to make those who resent them able to compete.

He said: “We may need to do so with the sort of special measures we’ve previously targeted at ethnic minorities. But the name of the game today is to tackle inequality, not racial special pleading. We will fail to do so at our peril”.

Mr Phillips said that unseen behind the bankers losing their jobs were janitors, elderly clerks and part time workers who were suddenly becoming dispensable.

He said Britons who lose their jobs and struggle to get back into work were likely to feel angry if they thought immigrants were still employed.

Using the example of a mother who tries to get back into work to increase the family income, he said: “She sees a clever, young, Latvian with three degrees doing the job she would like to do.

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out how she’s likely to feel.

“And add to that the picture of her child’s nursery class, with, as she will see it, an overworked teacher confronted with a class of 30 that speaks 15 languages at home. Who will she resent for not having the life she thinks she deserves.”

He warned of the political consequences with the potential for a surge in support for far right politicians and parties. “We have see the outcomes of this in Austria and Belgium”, Mr Phillips said.

But he said that anything that fanned the “flames of anti immigration hysteria” was a dangerous, divisive distraction.

Later Phil Woolas, the new immigration minister, said the Government would not cap migration in order to control the population of the UK.

He said the new points based immigration system would allow ministers to control the overall trend of economic migration rather than the specific numbers.

But last Friday he said he stood by comments he made in an interview with The Times that the Government would not allow the UK population to rise to 70m by 2031.

“That is the Government’s policy and position and the points based [immigration system] allows us to do that”, he said.

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