Over the past months, the press has indulged in an almost unparalleled witch-hunt against the Black community. Hardly a day has gone by without Iscare stories' of 'illegal immigrants! hitting the headlines or innocent families from Malawi being denounced for living in 'luxury' at tax-payers' expense.
This attempt to whip up race hatred has not only led leading Tories - such as Whitelaw - to call for immediately tightening up on immigration quotas. Figures such as Powell, sensing the new mood, have jumped on the band-wagon by renewing their prophecies of an imminent race war. Accusing the Labour government of 'covering up' for the fact that it has wildly exceeded immigration quotas, Powell however goes further than his erstwhile allies in the at a recent Police Federation meeting that 'mugging' was a direct result of high influx of Blacks into the country, ¡repatriation' as the sole way of avoiding 'massive violence.
Sheltering behind the new-found respectability of this campaign, ultra-right groups like the National Front have stepped up their racist antics. No doubt 'flushed' with their success in local elections only last year, they have now announced their intention of standing over 315 candidates next time round on the issue of repatriating all non-white immigrants.
Their 'anti - immigration' campaign has not been merely verbal but has sparked off a whole series of assaults on the Black community. Over the past six months alone, there has been a string of vicious attacks on Asians, such as that on Gurdip Singh Chaggar in London, tast June, who was stabbed to Spineless The response of the Labour leaders to this campaign has been spineless. Instead of 'challenging' figures like Powell head-on, they answered his accusations by meekly admitting that a clerical error had been made in the immigration quotas and leading Labour spokesmen, such as Bob Mellish, rushed to stress the need to tighten them still further.
The back - down of the government before this offensive can also be measured by Callaghan's decision - last year. - to sack Alex Lyon. (Minister of State at the Home Office) who, while no radical, had been calling for fairer treatment for Blacks. Lyonis comment on his dismissal - that Callaghan has never had 'much time for the Blacks! - is indicative of Labourls intention of introducing severer measures in the next period.
Such measures will not only include passing the Nationality Act which will further restrict the right of Blacks to enter the country, It is also rumoured that the government intends stepping up the hunt for fillegal immigrants' in the Black community & introducing a register of all immigrant dependants in the country. Such measures, which will give added fuel to racist attitudes, come hard on the heels of Labour! crack-down on overseas students which has included both limiting the numbers allowed into the country the fees for those who do manage to get past immigration control.
This spineless attitude on the part of the Labour leaders is not, of course, new. It is part of a long tradition of capitulating before racist demagogy that has led them, over the past few decades, to try and lout - Tory! the Tories in introducing strictions against Black immigrants. The development of such an attitude can no doubt be traced back to the startling defeat of Patrick Gordon -Walker in the 1964 elections by a Tory candidate in Smethwick who ran on a strong anti-immigration