By Dominic Casciani BBC News Online community affairs reporter

Trevor Phillips says CRE will battle extremism

The new head of Britain's race equality body has called for the asylum debate to be connected to reality amid fears of increasing racial tension.

Speaking as he began work, Trevor Phillips said he did not want the Commission for Racial Equality to be sitting on the margins of British life in a climate where extremists were exploiting the prospect of war to whip up fears and create division.

Mr Phillips said one of his top priorities would be to address the concerns of the majority white communities and he would be visiting areas where the far-right is active.

Mr Phillips said it was not his job to pronounce on who should come and go in Britain - but to work for effective integration.

"We are not being helped if people are constantly talking about asylum seekers, refugees and the much larger number of managed migrants in the same blanket terms.

"People need to discuss asylum with some connection to reality otherwise we cannot deal with the real problems."

White communities

The media should talk about what is happening rather than somebody in a pub telling a reporter what he thinks is happening, said Mr Phillips. "The prospects of war are giving extremists of all kinds the opportunity to whip up divisions and conflict."

Reaching out to white communities is a top priority. The problem of tackling racial inequality is the business of everyone - You cannot promote good relations if you don't talk to the majority community Trevor Phillips

Turning to areas where the BNP had been active, Mr Phillips said the CRE had to actively engage with white communities.

"There is a growing confidence within far-right groups that they can get away with it," he said.

"Reaching out to white communities is a top priority. The problem of tackling racial inequality is the business of everyone. You cannot promote good relations if you don't talk to the majority community.

"Inequality and division are as much a cost to the majority communities as they are to the minority communities."

The new CRE initiative aims to directly challenge extremism with grassroots activity before tensions spill onto the streets.

The project is being headed by Perry Nove, former Commissioner of the City of London Police.

Challenge to extremism

Mr Phillips cited a case where a child had suffered a broken arm after being jostled in a playground because his name was Osama.

"The headteacher at the school told me that he did not know what to say to the children [to counter the extreme views]," said Mr Phillips. "He did not know what to say about Islam."

He said the solutions may appear simple, but they often went completely missed, leaving extremism unchallenged.

A recent decision by the Metropolitan Police to put more officers on the beat near mosques or synagogues at key prayer times had made a fundamental difference to the sense of safety of the communities concerned, he said.

This kind of action needed to be repeated in all walks of life to ensure that extremism was not allowed to grow into inter-communal tension or conflict.

Mr Nove said Safer Communities needed to draw on the experience of hundreds of different organisations to find the best ways of combating extremism.

"There is a very significant potential for more tensions and further apprehension at the moment," said Mr Nove.