Tom Tancredo kicked off the National Tea Party Convention last week by complaining that President Obama was elected only because America no longer requires literacy tests for voters; a position which he defended as an attempt to stand up to the “cult of multiculturalism.” In that effort, he received support from Vision America’s Rick Scarborough, who declared that America would cease to exist if it becomes more than 30 percent Hispanic:

In an interview, Mr Tancredo defended his remarks, insisting they had “nothing to do with colour or ethnicity or any of that crap” but “has everything to do with people coming to America and wanting to be American”. That, he explained, means stopping talking your native language and doing everything to blend in. “Under the cult of multiculturalism, we don’t make them do that and that will have great implications,” he said. Looking at a British reporter, he galloped on: “When the Archbishop of Canterbury says there is nothing wrong with Sharia law being practised as well as British law, you say wha-a-at?”

Among the first keynote speakers yesterday, meanwhile, was Rick Scarborough, the pastor and firebrand founder of Vision America, which had its own stall here yesterday laden with books he has written, among them Liberalism Kills Kids. He also wanted to discuss the Tancredo speech which he apparently liked very much. “I didn’t hear racism,” he told this reporter, before spelling out his worries. “America is a country of legal immigrants but the Left has turned it into a country of invaders,” he offered bluntly. “Look at Europe and the rampant invasion of England. They are practising Sharia law and I think this crew is going to fight that.” Mr Scarborough also outlines how the US is a “special country” – more than any other in the world – and that is how God intended it. He adds: “If we are to become 30 per cent Hispanic we will no longer be America.” (And therefore no longer special.) “That would be a bad thing.”