NOW "a threat to the public good', you can be taken to a detention centre near Heathrow and deported overnight. There is no right of appeal If you are considered an illegal immigrant, you can be picked up off the streets, marched to a police station and asked to 'prove you have a right to be in Britain If you cannot prove it at once you may be on your way to deportation or sent to Pentonville where you may be kept for months while 'investigations' are made.
Of course, there are a hundred variations of police harassment of this sort. You may be dragged out of your bed at night, picked up in a club or arrested at your place of work. The fact that such intimidation is legal explains the constant terror and suspicion that surrounds the Black communities in places like Bradford or Southall.
The importance of these Acts cannot be overstressed. Once it is accepted that Blacks can be denied entry on the grounds of colour -and denied democratic rights in -Britain on the same grounds -then racism has received official sanction. All the Race Relations Acts in the world won't change It is the climate of racism fostered by these Acts - which the Tories are now talking of taking further with voluntary repatriation - which ultra-right groups like the National Front breed off.
Unfortunately, the labour leaders cannot be relied upon to champion the rights of Black people of racism.