ago to mobilise opposition to the overtly racist immigration controls of the 1971 Immigration Act. The platform adopted by the campaign was to agitate for the repeal of the Act and for opposition to all future racist curbs.
During its year of existence, the campaign has been heavily involved in publicising the draconian nature of the present curbs in in the labour and anti-racist movement and has produced two bulletins to this end.
In addition, pickets have been organised and participated in around specific issues which operation of racist curbs have thrown up-most notably the 'Virginity test' scandal which came to light in February, although evidence exists that such Gestapo-like methods have been going on for years.
AIMS It has become increasingly apparent to CAIL that, while numerous anti-racist groups committed to opposing racism exist, their links are minimal and they have no central thrust.
This seriously hinders the struggle since no campaign against racism can achieve any impact unless it is conducted on a mass scale. Furthermore, no campaign against racism can begin to seriously take up the central issues unless they confront head-on, policywise, the most explicit form of racism; namely, the Immigration Laws.
It is for these two reasons that CAIL exists and should set itself two main functions in the coming period.
FRAGMENTATION Firstly, growing co-ordination has to be developed between all various anti-racist groups in order that concerted action can be achieved.
Secondly, it is essential that the campaign gets across to as many organisations as possible that the immigration laws are central to the issue of racism. This may sound easy to achieve but the contrary is true.
One has only to consider the ambivalent attitude historically taken by the trade union movement to the issue of immigration controls. The Tories' Industrial Relations Bill went through Parliament in the early '70s amidst a storm of protest. Creeping alongside it-and effectively eclipsed by it-was the passage of the 1971 Immigration Act.
Unlike the mobilisations
around the IR Bill, no large-scale marches through London or elsewhere took place against the new racist laws. With the existence of an increasingly large campaign, pressure will have to be brought on the labour movement to take up the issue in a serious way.
ARGUMENTS In winning support in the labour movement, CAIL will have to confront head-on arguments that Black and Asian people are a 'problem' and that racist curbs are necessary. This argument, accepted by most labour leaders, only allows white to be pitted against black, allows the labour movement to become divided and trade union gains to be destroyed.
In winning the labour movement to defend the democratic rights of Black people, one is also therefore fighting to overcome any racial divisions. This will become very relevant in the context of rapidly-rising unemployment which the Tory government is going to encourage in the coming period.
By highlighting the fundamentally anti-democratic nature of the racist laws, CAIL can also, as it develops, play a growing role in defending working class unity and gains.
Campaign Against the Immigration LaWs (CAIL Ad Hoc Committee, in a personal capacity)
1 Commonwealth Immigration Act aign on a clear racist ticket. Talk igned to prepare the way for yet immigration curbs.
Whitelaw last year - are a racist's charter. They are not designed to curb immigration. They are designed specifically to curb Blacks trom entering the country be kept out. It is Blacks whose wives and children will be forced onto a 'register'. It is Blacks who will be hounded by the police -under the new powers contained in Whitelaw's proposals - and it is Blacks who will be 'helped' to leave the country CLIMAX in itself, new. It is merely the climax of a whole series of such Acts which can be traced back from the 1971 Immigration Act to the Tories' original Commonwealth Immigration Act of 1962 which, for the first time, made entry into Britain dependent on a colour bar;
Such Acts have not simply discriminated against Blacks coming into the country on the basis of colour. They have permeated the lives of all those who have squeezed past the immigration barriers, virtually turning them into second-class citizens. HARASSMENT If you are considered 'undesirable' Thatcher ran the election campof the country being 'swamped' by an alien culture was carefully desfurther measures to tighten up on The measures the Tories have up their sleeves - leaked by Willie It is Blacks whose families will CLIMATE What the Tories propose is not, that.
CAPITULATION For, as the 1971 Act puts it, curbs.
STE POLICE HARASSME PEOPLE PEOPLE On the contrary, far from fighting the racism implicit in past Acts, they have capitulated before them and actually attempted to out-do the Tories in introducing harsher It was Wilson's 1965 White Paper which restricted Black entry to a mere 8500 a year and Callaghan's 1968 Commonwealth Immigration Act that was introduced with the boast that it would do more to keep Blacks out than any piece of Tory legislation.
By capitulating to racist moods, the Labour leaders have created a situation in which white workers could-in the years ahead-fall victim to the demagogy of the ultra-right and see Blacks not as allies but as a threat to jobs and wages.
STRUGGLE It is because of this threat, which would pit white workers against Black, that socialists and anti-racists have a clear duty to launch a real struggle to repeal the 1971 Immigration Act and oppose any further proposals the Tories have in store to strengthen their racist provisions.
The Campaign Against the Imm igration Law (CAIL), launched : year ago, has already begun to win support in this direction. It has begun to attract wide layers of the Black movement, trade union and Labour Party branches to the concrete objective of fighting to repeal an Act which legalises racism in Britain.
The importance of such a campaign lies not only in its attempt to win for Black people elementary rights. It also lies in tackling. head on, the passive 'acceptance' of racism by the Labour leaders which can only encourage a rightwing back-lash tomorrow.
CAMPAIGN Such a campaign can grow very rapidly if the Labour Party - whose 1976 conference passed a motion calling for the repeal of the racist 1971 Act - can begin to move into action.
First steps could be for trade union and Labour Party branches to invite a speaker from CAIL, affiliate to the campaign and support its activities. In the difficult years ahead, building such a campaign - and challenging the right of labour leaders to implement racist laws in our name - can be decisive in curbing the growth
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