Let 'em In: The Immigration Controversy

LET 'EM IN: THE IMMIGRATION CONTROVERSY

ONE: THAT 'RIVERS OF BLOOD' SPEECH

During the EU Referendum, some controversial issues formed part of the debate over whether the UK should vote Leave. One such issue was immigration. The Leave campaign's slogan, promising that the UK would 'take back control', was understood to refer at least in part to some inability to control borders and decide as an autonomous country who to let in. The campaign poster 'breaking point', which depicted large crowds supposedly flooding into the UK, summed up Leave's position and spoke to those who felt that change had come too fast and was leaving them disempowered.

Opposing this view was the belief that the free movement of people and goods had been beneficial overall. Somehow, though, sensible debates over the ability and desirability to control immigration in a global age invariably seems to turn into an argument over extreme positions tinged with xenophobia. Control over borders and limiting migration is criticised as though it were promoting a fortress mentality in which the drawbridge is raised never to be lowered again, and the UK becomes 'little Britain', isolated from the world and viewing all foreigners with suspicion and intolerance.

In order to understand why debates over immigration get pushed to extremes, we need to go back in history. Now, immigration has been happening for hundreds of thousands of years, ever since humanity left its place of origin (Africa) in search of new lands to settle. I don't intend to give a complete history of this phenomenon, but instead want to focus on a period in postwar Britain that lead to an infamous speech that would become an accusation levelled at anyone raising the issue of immigration.

IMMIGRATION AFTER WORLD WAR 2

At the end of World War 2, Britain was in need of extra manpower in order to help rebuild the country. So, the 1948 British Nationality Act came into being. This act declared that all the King's subjects had British citizenship, which meant that around 800 million people had the right to enter the UK. This act, by the way, was never given any mandate by the People; it was, instead, a political decision. But it was not particularly controversial. For one thing, transportation was much more costly back then, so not many of the 800 million actually moved. Also, the fact that the country needed rebuilding, coupled with the fact that it was growing economically, meant that the half million who did arrive were easily absorbed.

In 1962, however, the Commonwealth and Immigrants Acts came into being, which was a quota system designed to place restrictions on immigration. Just prior to the introduction of this act, there had been a large influx of Pakistanis and Indians from the Muslim province around Kashmir. Like the Caribbean immigrants who had migrated following the British Nationality Act, these were hard-working men who brought some much-needed labour to textile mills in Bradford and surrounding towns, and to manufacturing towns like Leister. But there were also some notable differences. The Pakistani and Indian immigrants were far more likely to send for their families, and they were much less interested in any integration with their communities. As Andrew Marr explained, this group was:

"more religiously divided from the whites around them and cut off from the main form of male white working-class entertainment, the consumption of alcohol. Muslim women were kept inside the house and ancient habits of brides being chosen to cement family connections at home meant there was almost no sexual mixing, either. To many whites, the ‘Pakis’ were no less threatening than the self-confident young Caribbean men, but also more alien".

ENOCH POWELL

A year later, in 1963, Kenya won its independence and gave its 185,000 Asians a choice between surrendering their British passports and becoming full Kenyan nationals, or becoming effectively foreigners requiring work permits. Many decided to emigrate, to the point where some 2000 Asians a month were arriving in the UK by 1968. An amendment to the Commonwealth Immigrants Act that tried to impose an annual quota was rushed through by the then Home Secretary, Jim Callaghan (labour). Also, a Race Relations Bill was brought forward so that cases of discrimination in employment and housing could be tried in courts.

Although the Asian immigrants were well-educated, being as they were mostly civil servants, doctors and businesspeople, their arrival was cause for concern among the British public, noting once again that communities were changing without the electorate giving a mandate for it. This disquiet came to the attention of a member of the Conservative shadow cabinet, one Enoch Powell. Powell had seen how concerns over immigration had lead to a 7.5 percent swing to Peter Griffiths, who had gone on to defeat Labour's Patrick Gordon Walker in Smethwick during the 1964 election. The campaign Griffiths had run was a shockingly racist one. Its slogan was 'if you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote labour'. Two years later, Griffiths would lose his seat, having been denounced by Prime Minister Harold Wilson as a 'parliamentary lepper'. But Powell saw some merit in Griffiths' position, particularly the accusation that the political class was turning a blind eye to the effects of immigration.

(Enoch Powell)

So it was that on the 20th April 1968, Powell gave a speech in Birmingham's Midland hotel. It opened with an anecdote about a constituent who was considering leaving the country because "in 15 or 20 years' time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man", and went on to say that this was a view shared by hundreds of thousands. Did Powell not have a duty to voice the concerns of these people? "We must be mad, literally mad", he told the small crowd, "as a nation to be permitting the annual inflow of some 50,000 dependents" Powell warned that if this immigration wasn't stopped, the result would be unrest and riot:

"As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see “the Tiber foaming with much blood”’.

That speech has since become known as the 'rivers of blood' speech. It lead to Powell being sacked by shadow leader Edward Heath, who called the speech "racialist in tone and liable to exacerbate racial tensions". It would also come to have an effect on the ability to hold a sensible discussion over controlling immigration. As Jason Farell and Paul Goldsmith, authors of "How to Lose a Referendum" explained:

"he provided a bogeyman that could be used as a quick, lazy comparison to cut off as quickly as possible any debate about one of the key background policies of New Labour’s time in power. Becoming compared to Enoch Powell was what happened if you questioned the benefits of multiculturalism and immigration".

We will investigate New Labour's role in turning immigration into a politically-correct forbidden subject in an upcoming essay.

REFERENCES

"How to Lose a Referendum" by Jason Farrell and Paul Goldsmith

Wikipedia