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Emma Thompson today attacked a university for failing to accept enough ethnic minority students - and said the BNP would like it there.
The 50-year-old actress told students that "Nick Griffin would feel very comfortable" at Exeter, which she said must work harder to help make the south-west of England more diverse.
Thompson, who won a best actress Oscar in 1992 for her performance in Howard's End, made her comments after claiming that her Rwanda-born adopted son Tindyebwa Agaba, 22, suffered racist abuse during his studies there.
Mr Agaba - known as Tindy - read politics at the university. His mother claimed he suffered a "rough" time with "unpleasant experiences" because he is black.
Thompson visited the university with her son and actor and writer Kwame Kwei-Armah to talk about racism in society. She urged staff and students to be more tolerant and told them "it's up to you".
One member of the audience raised the issue of the BNP and comments by its leader Mr Griffin that London was no longer a British city.
Thompson replied: "He'd love Exeter, he would feel very comfortable here." The woman asked: "What can we do to change the whiteness of Devon and Cornwall, how can we expand our university?"
The actress said: "This is how we're doing it [by talking about it]. It's depressing when people think nothing is being done about it. Tindy had his experience and now we're having a big week of educational events to try to help it. Please understand you're already engaged, give yourself small goals.
"You're not going to get hundreds and hundreds of black students here overnight, but what you can do is make them more comfortable."
The actress was hosting a lecture at the university's Streatham Campus entitled All Africans Now: Artistry and Activism to promote racial equality. Thompson and her actor husband Greg Wise adopted Tindy, a former child soldier, in 2003 after he fled the genocide in Rwanda. He was 16.
University spokesman Stuart Franklin said: "Racism is a sad reality of British life. We would be naive to think racism did not affect some of the 18,000 people who work and study on campuses". A survey of 326 GPs by Pulse magazine has found that two per cent of them - six doctors - would vote for the BNP. Another four per cent said they would vote for UKIP. Just eight per cent would vote for Labour, 22 per cent for the Liberal Democrats and 52 per cent for the Tories.
Reader views (13)
I suggest that Emma keep her nose and her genocidal talk out of Devon. We're relatively unspoilt down here and I don't want that to change.
- James, Exeter.
What next?,ban cornish pasties because Nick Griffin was once photographed eating one!!,silly emma thompson talking the usual load of piffle.
- General Lee Wright, Bent Kent, Region 1658A EUSSR
She's got a point , Exeter always has and continues to be a very middle class and academically average university. A bit like a finishing school where you don't have to work to hard to get yourself a degree.
- David Stephens, London
You silly, silly people! I dont think Emma was getting at the fact that Devon and Cornwall are "too white", I think she is getting at how they treat and deal with racism.
- Nat, London
This is naive nonsense from another movie star exceeding their brief. Immigrants whether black, white, pink or blue simply don't tend to go to Devon and Cornwall because they're amongst the UK's poorest counties. There's nothing there for them. If these places were to get rich and offer work, people would migrate there.
- Kevin Lynch, ex-London
Emma, you are deluded.
- Dave Davies, Basingstoke, Hants
Perhaps Emma could decamp to Rwanda, its not to white there...Not sure she'd like it much though..
- Shelly, London
"What can we do to change the whiteness of Devon and Cornwall"
Sounds to me like a potential hate crime. Imagine if anyone wanted to change the ethnicity of parts of London!
- Ian Parker, Cobham, England
Why should the South West become more diverse.I suggest if she does not like the South West or it's people she stays in London,lives in her big house entertaining her luvvie mates trying to be right on.Grow up you silly women most people in the country are not bothered with race, it seems only out of favour so called stars and people with a agenda bother about race theses day, I 'm sure the people of Exeter have managed in the past and will in the future without you sticking your oar in.
- Jim, surrey
Yawn! Another sickening liberal attacking any idea of white people and their culture. Sorry, but we're sick of her and her ilk and their ideas which have destroyed our once great country. Whiteness is always seen as bad, surely this in itself is racist.
- S Stander, London
"What can we do to change the whiteness of Devon and Cornwall"
Another marxist luvvie advocating ethnic engineering and self-loathing.
- D, Kentish Town
So the south west is too white is it?
Isnt that racist? Would Emma go to a school in Tower Hamlets and say their are too many asians there or walk through Peckham and comment about how they can change the 'blackness' of the area
How these inverted racists get away with this i do not know.
- Lb, London
Emma is a pathetic individual, does she not realise nobody is worried about being called a racist anymore, one is only expressing one's opinions as they are entitled to do so. The times are changing.
- Anthony, uk
