Open%20borders%20The%20case%20against%20immigration%20controls%20-%20Teresa%20Hayter

34 Open Borders
whole, been not to confront the racists and refute their arguments and
distortions, but to promise to stop or reduce immigration, and thus to
legitimate the appeals of the far right to irrational fear and aggression.
From 1962 onwards a justificatory myth began to develop. This was the
contradictory argument that immigration controls, rather than legitimising
racism, were necessary for good race relations. An article in the Guardian of
23 January 1966 by Philip Mason defined the aim of official policy as follows:
We are determined to treat those immigrants who are here as kindly as we treat our
older citizens; we are determined to cut down sharply the number of fresh entries until
this mouthful has been digested.
This prescription has become the political orthodoxy. By 1987, in a Tory
booklet entitled Our First Eight Years: The Achievements of the Conservative
Government Since May 1979, a short paragraph under the heading ‘Better
race relations’ had only the following to say:
Firm but fair immigration controls have been applied in the interests of harmonious
race relations. Last year fewer people were accepted for settlement in the United
Kingdom than at any time since the control of Commonwealth immigration began
in 1962.
In the House of Commons on 20 April 1995, the Conservative home
secretary, Michael Howard, asked whether ‘in the interests of good race
relations’ he would ensure that ‘both bogus asylum seekers and illegal
immigrants are pursued both fairly and firmly’, replied:
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. It is an inseparable part of the good race relations
record, of which we can be proud, that we have a firm but fair immigration control.
Our procedures are being abused both by illegal immigrants and by bogus asylum
seekers.
Increasingly, Labour promises to provide help for integration and good race
relations were coupled with promises to make sure no more immigrants
came to add to the ‘problems’ immigration was supposed to have created.
Even those people who accepted that social and economic problems were not
the result of immigration, and that immigration controls were not intended
to reduce the overall numbers of immigrants, but only to reduce the numbers
of certain types of immigrants, nevertheless argued that British people
needed some reassurance that immigration was being restricted. Yet
accepting that controls of ‘coloured’ immigration were required implied
accepting that coloured immigrants caused problems. It therefore made the
task of countering prejudice against them harder. The progressive tightening
of immigration controls did not end prejudice and racism; it increased and
strengthened them. Each new concession to racist pressures for controls was
followed by demands for more.
From the early 1960s Labour Party members, in particular Fenner
Brockway MP, began to call for legislation to counter discrimination against