MARGARET THATCHER demanded a clampdown on Asian men bringing second wives into the country, claiming Britain’s immigration rules discriminated in favour of the “coloured Commonwealth,” according to newly released government papers.

Files released by the National Archives show how in 1986 ministers in Mrs Thatcher’s government were under pressure to prevent Pakistani and Bangladeshi women in polygamous marriages joining their husbands in Britain.

Attorney general Sir Michael Havers warned that any attempt to exclude the women concerned would be illegal without new legislation.

Responding, Mrs Thatcher scrawled in a handwritten note: “The country would be with us on this. We would be crazy to discriminate in favour of the coloured Commonwealth against the UK.”