Afghani ‘asylum seekers’ officially flood into Britain at the rate of at least 700 every month — but the Labour Home Officer minister Phil Woolas has claimed that the war in Afghanistan “stops immigration.”

The number of ‘asylum seekers’ seeking refuge in Britain has skyrocketed by an average of 20 percent every year since the Labour and Tory-supported war in that country was started.

Official census figures have shown that the number of Afghans coming to Britain since the mid-2000s has completely exceeded the total number of Afghans in this country prior to 2001. The current influx of Afghans makes them one of the largest groups of ‘asylum seekers’ along with Iraqis. The latter influx was also caused by the Labour/Tory war in Iraq.

Nonetheless, Mr Woolas claimed in Parliament that British troops are fighting in Afghanistan in part to keep immigration to Britain under control.

“The number of asylum seekers coming to the UK would significantly increase if troops were withdrawn,” Mr Woolas told MPs.

He was responding to a question from the home affairs select committee about whether members of the Taliban had successfully claimed asylum in Britain.

“An argument that is not aired strongly enough in my view is the benefit of the presence of our armed forces and other countries’ is to help us control immigration,” Mr Woolas said.

Mr Woolas’s comments came in the wake of the tragic news that another five British soldiers were murdered in Afghanistan by what was described as a “rogue policeman.”

According to newswire reports, the “rogue policeman” was in fact a well-known Taliban supporter named Gulbadin who had deliberately signed up to the British taxpayer funded police training course with the intention of killing British soldiers.

The same newswire reports stated that Gulbadi had been “greeted with flowers on return to Taliban protection.”

The latest five soldiers to die were shot as they drank tea at a military compound in the village of Shin Kalay. They were part of a British army training programme designed to “expand Afghan security forces.”

Ninety-two British service personnel have been killed in southern Afghanistan so far this year, compared with 51 in the whole of last year.

Quite apart from the incalculable human cost in lives, the war in Afghanistan serves no British interests whatsoever and should be ended immediately.

Contrary to what Mr Woolas and his Tory party war-supporting friends might think, that war is illegal, immoral and pointless.

The British National Party has made it clear that all British troops should be withdrawn immediately. There is not one grain of Afghan sand worth a single British life, and those evil Westminster parties who forced that war on this country should be made legally liable in war crimes trials for all the deaths they have caused.