BROMSGROVE MP Julie Kirkbride declared this week she will not be gagged in the forthcoming General Election campaign by refusing to sign a pledge calling on race not to become an issue.

Miss Kirkbride said she objected to being "blackmailed" by pressure groups into siding with their aims.

The Tory MP has joined Shadow Chancellor Michael Portillo in refusing to sign a pledge drawn up by the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) calling for racial issues to be left out of the campaign.

It was signed in a blaze of publicity by the leaders of the three main parties and Welsh and Scottish nationalists.

But it became a political hot potato when retiring Tory MP John Townend, who declared immigrants were "undermining Anglo Saxon culture," and his colleague Christopher Gill refused to sign.

Miss Kirkbride said on Monday: "I refuse to be dictated to by pressure groups with the implicit assumption that if I don't sign their petitions then I must be against their aims.

"I am not a racist, but I do believe asylum is a big issue in the forthcoming election campaign and I will speak about these problems in my own words.

"It will be the people of Bromsgrove who will be the judge of my remarks, not the CRE."

Peter McDonald, her Labour opponent in the General Election, said: " I am shocked, but not surprised because she refused to support the ban on hand guns.

"The National Front has targeted Bromsgrove in the past and we should act together to stamp out racism."