Britain's Home Secretary tries to keep our animal rights activists out of their country: Animal rights campaigners yesterday said they would fight any move by the home secretary, David Blunkett, to ban American activists from entering the UK. The Home Office has written to a number of US campaigners, warning them that they may not be allowed in if they are deemed to have made statements inciting violence in the UK. There is no appeal against exclusion, although campaigners in the UK can seek judicial reviews of Home Office decisions. Among those written to is Jerry Vlasak, a California-based surgeon and adviser to Speak, the group leading a campaign to halt construction of an animal research laboratory at Oxford University. Dr Vlasak is due to appear at a conference being organised next month by Shac, the group waging a campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences, which uses animals for research, in Cambridgeshire. Dr Vlasak came to the attention of Mr Blunkett when quoted in the Observer last Sunday as apparently advocating the killing of scientists involved in animal research. He claims he was misrepresented. The Home Office will not say which American activists have been written to, but Dr Vlasak told the Guardian yesterday that he was among them. He had received an email from the home secretary asking him about what he had allegedly said.