AN anti-refugee petition calling for the UK to “close its borders” has been signed by more people from Basildon than anywhere else in the country.

The petition on the Parliament website, entitled “Stop all immigration and close the UK borders until ISIS is defeated”, has been signed by more than 400,000 nationwide.

In the South Basildon and East Thurrock constituency, 1,696 had backed the petition by Friday afternoon.

Thurrock had contributed the second highest number of signatories – 1,621 – while no other constituency in the UK had more than 1,500 people sign up.

However, those backing the call find themselves at odds with one of their Tory MPs.

South Basildon and East Thurrock member Stephen Metcalfe believes banning immigration is not a sensible response to concerns about terrorism, fuelled by this month’s attacks in Paris.

He said: “I wouldn’t criticise anyone for signing it and I understand people’s concerns, but completely shutting the borders is giving in to what terrorists want, which is to divide us.

“By yielding to them in this way, we just fuel their rhetoric that we are anti-Islamic, which I don’t think we are as a nation.

“We have invested £1.9billion in increasing security to make sure we know what the threats are.

“The consequences of shutting the borders are extreme. It would mean people couldn’t come here on holiday and it would affect our economy and the City of London.”

However, Linda Allport-Hodge, who leads the Ukip group on Basildon Council, has signed the petition.

She said: “People at the moment are feeling a little bit unsafe in their own territory.

“We should have no immigration without proper border controls.”

The British woman who started the online petition doesn’t live full-time in the UK, but in Spain.

Tina Reeves has admitted she splits her time fairly evenly between Plymouth and her Spanish holiday home.

Echo:

PRIEST: BASILDON IS GENEROUS TO REFUGEES

A PRIEST who has led a campaign to collect vital supplies for refugees in Calais says he thinks the petition does not reflect the truly generous spirit of people in Basildon.

Father Dominic Howarth, parish priest of Our Lady and All Saints, Basildon, has now made three visits with church representatives to the Calais “Jungle” refugee camp, carrying goods donated by local people.

The supplies they took were either donated or bought with thousands of pounds given by local people.

Fr Howarth said: “I remain overwhelmed by the generosity of the people of Basildon in the past four months to support the refugees.

“I was in Calais last week, and it’s hard to overstate how much the refugees there hate Isis.

“They are fleeing Isis – some of them were injured by them in their home countries.

“At 3pm the day after the Paris attacks, Christians and Muslims congregated in a communal space in the Calais Jungle and prayed together for the people who had lost their lives.

“They stood together to say they hate Isis.”