- guardian.co.uk, Monday May 1 2000 17.25 BST
The Tory leader, making his most outspoken comments on the issue ahead of Thursday's local elections, immediately drew accusations from Jack Straw, the home secretary, of "pandering" to the extreme right.
Mr Straw, who is considering whether to ban a National Front march planned in Worcester on May 6, charged Mr Hague with feeding "anxieties which can lead to extremism" by "gross exaggeration" of the asylum situation.
The home secretary's attack echoed strong criticism from the Liberal Democrat leader, Charles Kennedy, who accused the Conservative leader of behaving like a "saloon bar politician" and lowering the tone of British politics.
Mr Hague's comments, made four days before voters around the country go to the polls in town hall elections, underline his belief that his strategy of seizing on high-profile causes such as asylum or householders' right to self-defence is gaining his party electoral ground.
Party insiders believe proposals to lock up asylum seekers in "reception centres" have played well with most voters. The Tory leader will push the race debate still further soon in a speech to the Police Federation, where he will warn that police officers should spend less time on "politically correct race awareness courses" and more time fighting crime.
The tone of yesterday's remarks, made on ITV's Jonathan Dimbleby programme, took him on to more extreme territory than previously. Denying playing the race card, he argued that the influx of asylum seekers into Britain was running "out of control".
After a complaint from a black audience member that there had been a National Front march in Birmingham (a reference to the Bromsgrove march) last week, he claimed: "We would end up seeing more National Front marches in Birmingham if we failed to deal with these problems.
"This country has managed to improve race relations, community relations, over many years by being firm but fair about immigration, asylum and so on. Now those rules are being abused."
Mr Straw ordered a ban on a planned National Front march on St George's Day in Worcester last month amid fears of serious public disorder and anxiety among ethnic minority communities. One person was arrested as around 30 supporters tried to defy the ban.
Earlier in April, five people were arrested during a 50-strong NF march in Margate, Kent, organised in protest at the number of asylum seekers accommodated in the seaside town.
Yesterday's exchanges indicate that Mr Hague is unrepentant over his party's decision to make asylum a political issue.
After an audience member on the Dimbleby programme, herself from an ethnic minority, appealed to him to soften his rhetoric, arguing that words such as "flooding and swamping" made her feel intimidated, the Tory leader refused, saying: "We should use words properly with their full meaning and their true meaning. The dictionary definition of a flood is a flow that is out of control."
He also restated pledges to amend the law on self-defence, possibly to restrict the mandatory life sentence for murder, and underlined his own support for capital punishment, though denying that any commitment to reintroduce the penalty would be included in the Tories' next election manifesto.
Mr Straw, whose strategy has been to leave the Tories little ground on asylum by taking a tough approach, yesterday clung firmly to the moral high ground as he directed his most impassioned criticism to date at the Tory leader.
Claiming Mr Hague's comments showed up the "dangers of weak leadership", he said: "Pushed to the right by forces in his own party, he now justifies his stand by claiming that otherwise support for even more extreme views would grow - but pandering to the National Front and other such groups is no way to oppose them.
"Mr Hague has fed the anxieties which can lead to extremism by grossly exaggerating the position on asylum and by irresponsibly opposing our sensible measures like the new civil penalty on hauliers."
The Liberal Democrats' home affairs spokesman, Simon Hughes, also rejected Mr Hague's remarks. "The number of asylum seekers coming in is going down, not up," he said.
"It's not up to Britain as to how many asylum seekers there are; it reflects the situation in the rest of the world."
Last month Mr Hughes reported both the Conservatives and Labour to the commission for racial equality, prompting a commission warning to both parties.
But yesterday Mr Hague said: "I will not be told by attitudes of political correctness to stop using the English language ... We have asylum seekers who are bogus, and if they're bogus we should call them bogus."
