Under the Act's 'patrial' clause, specific clampdowns are placed on all immigrants wnose ancestors were not born in the United Kingdom. white, Commonwealth citizens have freer access than ever under such an Act _ over two million kith being granted virtually unlimited entry rights - black immigrants are immediately disenfranchised.
o enter ine country, obtained a work permit for a specific job with a specitic employer. have no right to settle here or to bring in dependents.
They are subject, at immigratior control, to vicious interrogations and humiliating delays for the slightest irregularity in their papers. the job of immens implementing government policy, to keep blacks out, Colour Bar These openly racist aspects of immigration control are by no means new. Moment moore in his study 'Racism and Black Resistence' ex•lains now. as early as the Tories' 1962 Commonwealth Immigration Act, immigration control had become synonymous with Icolour bar!.
The 1962 Act, which made entry into Britain dependent upon the 'voucher system', was obviously intended to benefit from the racial prejudice developina in areas such as ine Midlands in response to high black immigration in the previous decade. The tact inat it was ine lories inenselves who had actually encouraged such migration - to compensate 1o1 shortage in the service industries - was, quite naturally, crossed over.
The precedent set by the 1962 Act, with hardly any opposition at all from Labour, despite its former •iecce lo any restrictly in Commonwealth immigration, the basis for ever more vicious Acts. Once it was conceded that black An estimated 300 people are, at present, without trial - in detention centres near Heathrow Airport. Kept imprisoned by, Securicor bullies', they are the latest victims of the Tories' 1971 Immigration Act.
The fact that many of them possess British passports is irrelevent. They suffer from one major drawback; they are The 1971 Immigration Act, the most vicious in a long series of such Acts, was specifically designed to curb black Whereas Labour government's Draper. and, finally, and kin' such Acts, they must have They Basic Rights After Undoubtedly, enter the country.
this year, powers they under the 1971 Act.
sub-aloud.
laid workers.
an illegal immigrant, being detained -people were a 'problem', successive governments vied with each other in introducing stricter controls. The 1962 Act was followed by the the 1968 Immigration Act by the present one enacted by Heath in 1971. Clearly, which have reduced black Commonwealth immigrants to 'aliens' dependent upon • a 'work permit', have their economic advantages. They provide employers with a ready supply of cheap labour for the most menial jobs which car be dismissed at a moment's notice by rerusal to renew ine contracte such acts have done more to foster racial tension than all ot rowell's speecnes avour 'gutters running with blood'. Their racist bias is not limited to immigration control but permeates the very lives of those few blacks who do manage to gain a work permit to They reduce them to second-class Cilizens. thrust into dead-end jobs, & denied the most elementary rights.
When Roy Jenkins' Prevention of Terrorism Act was passed earlier it was widely seen as a savage inroad into civil liberties. As far as the Home Secretary or police were concerned, little more than the application of already possessed The licence given to them under this Act is one that assumes civil liberties are confined to whites - blacks being considered a second class If you are considered 'undesirable' as the Act specifies, a threat to the 'public good'), you can be taken to a special detention centre near Heathrow and deported overYou have no right of appeal. What the Home Secretary considers a 'inreal can be clearly seen in ine own attempts to curb immigration that it is black peopie wno the 'problem'. reduced to an exercise in the 'numbers game'. And, Moore points out, lif numbers! game. then black people already here, and every black the discussion shifts to questions of deportation'.
Powell is only too aware that the ball is in his court. By carefully playing on the racial prejudice created by such acts in the years ahead, he no doubt hopes to be able to divide and confuse the workers! movement as to the real cause o cut-backs in social services. fact that the labour movement has not challenged this process of legalised racism - but actually, in the torm or Labour governments: helped promote it - no doubt gives him and his ilk good cause for such Climb-down Despite the fact that, in 1961, the Labour Party was opposea to any cut-back in Commonwealth immigration, it has increasingly been drawn into the arguement that black people are, in some way. problems. picture or Labour leaders trying le out-compete the Tories in reducing ine numbers or diack immiarants The sharp shift in attitude was, due to the startling defeat o Patrick Gordon Walker in 1964 by a meinwick canceale who daoole d strong anti-black immigration policy. Instead of launching a strong antiracist campaign to explain the real issues, ine Labour ledaers. watchful of the polls, of their opponents.
This led to the Labour government's 1965 White Paper, restricting black immigrants to 8500 a year and to the 1968 Immigration Act which Callaghan defended against Powell by sayıng It nad done more to keep blacks out than any piece of Tory legislation! Such acts were introduced with hardly any opposition witnin ine Labour Farty or trade union movement - or, at least, any create The debate has beer as Robert you play the is a problem, and been cone.
ACT poor housing and and wages. at the root of social it has led to the gruesome no head-on, even were panicked movemen which proposed active opposition.
It is true that certain trade unions such as the T&GWU are on record as being against all forms of racis immigration control. Very little has to translate this verbal opposition nowever over the years. into a real struggle against the 1971 by retusing to challenge sucn taws in a head-on way, the labour leaders have created a situation in which large layers of workers could, in the coming period. fall victim to Powell's demagogy and see blacks not as allies but as a threat to Jobs Repeal the Act It was mainly because of the failure of the labour movement to lead a struggle on inis issue unal ine Campaign to Repeal the Immigration Act (CHIA) was launched last yedi at a 200-strong public meeting. The main aim of the campaign, which has already won support from trades councils, Labour Mrs such as vod! Maynard and immigrant groups, is to build a mass campaign to repeal the 1971 Immigration Act.
The importance of such a campaign lies not only in its attempt to win for black people elementary human rights. It also lies in reaching into the labour movement and tackling, those prejudices built up over centuries of colonial rule. These prejudices will not go away. Unless they are combatted today, they could form the basis tomorrow: for a right-wing backlash that could seriously divide the worrers In order to combat such prejudices. it is not enough to campaign aga -s: racism lin general'. Everyone, Harold Wilson to the socialist let: is against racism 'in general'. The task is to mount a campaign agains one of its key forms, the 1971 Ac:, which legally justifies the racism black people suffer in every aspec: of their lives.
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black. immigration into the country.