Few capitalist governments in the world have produced as many "immigration" Acts in such a limited period of time as have Labour and Conservative governments in Britain since 1962. The score at the present moment is roughly even, though it could be argued that whereas the Tories produced anti-Black legislation at respectable intervals (1962 and 1971), the Labour government got off to a much quicker start by producing two disgraceful Acts within a span of three years (1965 and 1968). The question of how to fight racism is therefore posed very sharply. An essential prerequisite, however, is understanding the nature and roots of racism.
While the historical roots of racism can clearly be traced to the capitalist mode of production and while we can still argue that the degree of racism in Britain is determined by the economic situation of British capitalism, to restrict the argument simply to that is to advocate that the victims of racism engage in a fatalistic political pause while the process of abolishing capitalism continues (or rather begins) and the white working class catches up with the consciousness of black workers—a consciousness which has been moulded by the oppression they suffer. Apart from being utopian, this approach is quite frankly reactionary, because it tends to underplay the deep and ingrained racism which exists in the working class movement. A racism which is linked very definitively to the Fabian excrescence and other Labour imperialists, The "White Man's Burden" and similar attitudes may not have led to race riots half a century ago in Britain, but it did so in many parts of the areas which were dominated by British imperialism. (Thus the fascist General Dyer led his troops to massacre hundreds of Indians in Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, India, in the early part of the twentieth century, simply to assert the superiority of his race and the Empire). Today this decrepit and tattered imperialism is reduced to shooting oppressed Catholics in the Six Counties and its power has declined considerably at home. Hence it uses the old ingrained racism against black workers in this country. The Tory Immigration Bill is part of that process (as were the antics of racist Jim Callaghan when he was in office) and is designed to pander to the backwardness of the British working class and this accentuate existing divisions. It is interesting that not even the "left" trade union leaders have spoken up loudly and clearly on behalf of black trade union members, who will be affected by the clauses of this Bill. We can also predict that Labour, far from repealing this Bill if it is returned to office, will probably strengthen it and remove "some of the existing loopholes".
The Black population is a tiny minority in Britain, but the battle-lines have been drawn by its adversaries; it will be forced to fight back and in the process build its own organisations. The Black Panthers and numerous branches of Indian and Pakistani workers' associations have already made a start and shown that they are capable of answering the racist challenge. A further development would, of necessity, be the creation of Committees of Self-Defence in the black ghettoes to protect the people from both racist attacks and police brutality. The latter, in particular, is on the increase and the new racists' charter gives it rights to question any Black person and force him to produce his identity card to show whether he is a patrial or a non-patrial. In addition, the temporary status of many black workers will mean deportation if they engage in any meaningful political activity. (The message of British capitalism is clear: we need wage-slaves to work for us, but we can't afford them to engage in trade union activities, leave alone politics. The black workers on their own cannot destroy capitalism in Britain—as they can, for instance, in South Africa—on their own. This can only come about by united working class action at some stage in the future, and even then by their own experience of struggle against racist brutality, the black workers will play an important role; but it is totally confused to expect them to wait for the British revolution. Their struggle against the endemic racism of the capitalist system must go on and must be supported by the revolutionary movement. White revolutionaries have an important class duty to solidarise with the Black struggle in a whole variety of ways. There has been a tendency among certain sections of the British left, the C.P., I.S. and the SLL (the Maoists are on this question very correct) to see the racism of the Tories as not much different to the restrictions imposed on Italian and Yugoslav labour by the Common Market countries. They see racism as tied directly to economic interests and do not see that it is a total ideology which aims to dehumanise the black population through social, sexual, legal and other forms of oppression. It is as a result different from the economic exploitation of immigrant white labour and it is a gross economistic oversimplification to imply that the Immigration Bill is directly related to the Industrial Relations Bill. It leads to simply mouthing pious propagandistic platitudes and avoiding the question of intervention.
What is needed is a united front of left organisations to fight against the racist Bill and to develop a concrete and meaningful solidarity with the Black population of this country. The Spartacus League has made a modest start by setting up a Black Defence Committee and appealing to all socialist groups to affiliate to it and help build a sustained campaign against racism. The response of the groups has been abysmal and we stress once again the importance of unity, at least, on certain key issues which affect the labour movement. We urge the comrades of IS, SLL, YCL, etc. to join with the Spartacus League and build a strong movement of solidarity with the victims of racist oppression.