OLDHAM: Towns across northern England erupted into riots last summer as simmering tensions between Asians and whites exploded into Britain’s worst race violence for more than a decade. A year on, as ultra right-wing politicians vie to win seats in May 2 local elections, residents believe the violence can return.

“Everybody’s worried, it’s always at the back of people’s minds that it’s not over yet,” said pub landlord John, whose front window was smashed by a petrol bomb thrown by rioters. “Ninety per cent of people round here, whether it be Asian or white, are saying it could blow again,” said John, who wanted to remain anonymous because of fear of reprisals.

This city is one of the poorest places in England, littered with boarded up red-brick houses and closed-down shops. Its economy was built on textile mills, which attracted Asian immigrants in the 1970s, but then closed in the 1990s, bringing unemployment and poverty.

The British National Party (BNP), the country’s main extreme right party, sees Oldham and other former mill towns as its best recruiting grounds because they are poor and racially mixed, yet utterly divided.

Although 11 per cent of Oldham’s 219,000 people come from ethnic minorities, a figure expected to double by 2011, boundaries between white and Asian areas are clear and almost never bridged.

Schools are separate and there is so little inter-racial mingling that children as old at 10 at a recent inter-community event to celebrate Eid interacted with people of other skin colours for only the first time. It was against this background that rioting erupted last May. Racist attacks on Asian taxi drivers, a high-profile assault on a white pensioner by Asian youths, and marches by far right-wing groups exploded into three nights of violence.

This city’s leaders say only massive investment can alleviate problems such as a death rate from heart disease that is twice the national average, and only 30 per cent of Asian teenagers could read or write English.

The BNP, partly blamed by police and politicians for last year’s unrest, says any government action would be too little, too late for this city’s whites. Opponents say the party is still racist. “All they are interested in is what divides the community. They have just built on the violence and conflict that was generated,” said Mohammed Azam, coordinator of this city’s coalition against racism. Rashid Mahroof, director of Race Equality Partnership, said serious attacks on Asians still occurred, albeit less frequently. —Reuters