The victory of autochthonous racism

POLITICAL COMMENTARY AUBERON WAUGH

`Trouble is, man, you can't afford a bloody Conscience about this,' said a left-wing Labour MP out of the corner of his mouth. All Monday and Tuesday morning the left was working itself into a frenzy over school milk and national insurance stamps, in order to avoid discussing the Immigration Bill. While most were prepared to go through the motions of deploring it, there were very few who actually wanted to see it thrown out. Perhaps only Mr Ben Whitaker, from his elegantly appointed residence in Hampstead, and such busted flushes as Dingle Foot or the admirable Mr Paget, would really like to see the Labour party court unpopularity in this way. Sir Dingle's brother, Michael, lives in a dream world of his own, but many of his fellow opium-eaters had a wary eye on that section of the electorate which Mr Callaghan calls 'our people'—the lower working class. So long as the Bill was certain to go through, they would vote against it. Possibly for the first time, many of them were beginning to understand the con- straints of a party in office, when compared with the freedom of opposition.

Not so the Conservatives. Even after three and a half years in the wilderness, many are still convinced that they are the Government. If the Shadow Cabinet had come out with no policy statement at all on the Immigration Bill, and left it to a free vote, nobody would have held Mr Heath responsible if the Bill had failed. Those resentful voters who are looking for a peg on which to hang their racist fantasies would have continued to imagine that Mr Sandys speaks for the Conservative party. Moreover, those Tories who set store by national honour, personal integrity, or who rather like Asians and hold no particular brief for the welfare services as at present con- stituted, or who are prepared to countenance the idea of the lower working class being annoyed and are more concerned about the ser- vant problem—all these could have held their heads high, instead of wringing their hands and crying `But what were we to do?' One of the joys of being in opposition is that no one notices much what you do—the Government gets the blame for everything. If there had been a genuinely free vote, the left could not have been sure that the Government would not be defeated, and Tories would have been able to watch them troop into the lobbies in support of the first legislation put before a British parlia- ment which was nakedly and explicitly racist in its intention.

Perhaps your political correspondent had first better explain where he stands. Quite apart from the long-term advantage which would come from speeding up the inevitable collapse of our present welfare system, it seems to me there is an immediate short-term advantage to be gained from the infusion intd our country of so many keen commercial minds which far outweighs the risk of civil disturbance at a later date. Moreover, I can't agree with Mr Powell that such civil disturbances as are in- evitable in a diverse, multi-racial and dis- parate society are the ultimate evil, nor with Mr Sandys that the entire British-lower work.- ing class has a sovereign right to be housed, medicated and pensioned, as well as educated,

at the expense of the upper working class and bourgeoisie. Quite possibly I would feel differently if I were a member of this lower working class; but I'm not, so I don't. In any case, your political correspondent stands shoulder to shoulder with Mr lain Macleod. the Archbishop of Canterbury and Mr David Winnick against the • creaky socialist defences of Mr Duncan Sandys, Mr Enoch Powell, Mr James Callaghan and Mr Quintin Hogg.

Mr Callaghan spoke on a level of controlled emotion. 'I am not an unfeeling man, as the House will know,' he said. This Bill was not the child either of panic or of prejudice. but of long consideration. Both this Bill and the still unpublished Race Relations Bill were essential parts of a fair and balanced policy. The House listened quietly, and there were no interruptions from the left, unlike the scenes which greeted most of Mr Callaghan's more memorable appearances in the past. It was almost as if the House was anxious to hear anything which might justify a measure which many—if not most—felt in their hearts to be as dishonour- able and as cynical as any they had been asked to consider.

Mr Hogg, too, decided to make a virtue of the unpleasant position in which he found him- self. Later speakers congratulated him on his sensibility, which included a, fulsome denunciation of Tom M'boya's racialism. Only Sir George Sinclair fell into that trap for the liberal unwary, and announced how well he understood the pressure on any Kenyan govern- ment to make way for what he described as autochthonous Kenyans. Probably they all felt that Sir George was too nice to be heckled, be- cause nobody asked him about the autoch- thonous English—or perhaps the more rabid opponents of Asian immigration did not have time to consult their dictionaries. In the highly charged emotional atmosphere, this was no moment to call a spade a spade.

In the light of the official opposition's acquiescence—`Believe me, I am not making this argument with any kind of relish,' cried Mr Hogg—and the Government's own extreme diffidence in the matter, it fell to Sir Dingle Foot to open for the effective opposition, just as it fell to Mr Sandys to open for the real sup- port. Sir Dingle is undoubtedly a fine, upstand- ing gentleman, but he is no rabble-rouser. It was a sad little speech, even if it was the best he could do, but then this must have been

a sad occasion for what remains of Labour's libertarian wing. His quotation from Mr Gait- skell's speech on the 1962 Immigration Act— 'this miserable, shameful, shabby Bilf—had all the poignancy of 'Auld Lang Syne' sung at the end of an unfashionable Hunt Ball.

Only Mr Sandys's speech cheered things up. The House settled down to, a Duncan bait. There he stood, the golden-haired wonder-boy of the moment, looking for all the world like a war hero (which he isn't) braving the jeers of the left. `It is said that I as Colonial Secretary gave a pledge,' he pronounced in his own par- ticular style—half actor, half elder statesman— 'I gave no such pledge. I believe the most use- ful contribution I can make . . ."Is to shut up,' they all shouted in glee. It took some twenty minutes for that piece of advice to penetrate his heavy defences. `It's no good telling me to shut up.' he said with quiet dignity.

At least the whole squalid episOde has re- vealed a few cracks in the massive facade of Conservative solidarity. Probably the most telling point which Mr Macleod made in last week's SPECTATOR concerned the difficulty which the Conservative party will now have in demonstrating its moral indignation against the Government's broken pledges. Mr Sandys's assurance that there had been no pledge—and that there was clearly no legal obligation, since Parliament is free to pass or rescind laws as it sees fit—might be accepted by the party faith- ful, but nobody else will be much impressed. It was backed, one might add, by such respect- able lawyers as Mr Hogg and Sir Lionel Heald.

For the first time, the party in opposition was asked to take an unpopular stand on a matter of honour, and all but fifteen declined to do so. Of course, an equally tiny minority holds the opposite set of principles, believing that we should keep Britain British and heap every con- ceivable welfare benefit on such of the pure Anglo-Saxon strain as decide to remain, but the great mass of the Tory party was demonstrating no more than its deference to the popular mood. There are very few members of the Shadow Cabinet unaware of the harm this will do them among the highly articulate and—dare I say it? —fairly influential sections of the country who were beginning to drift towards them.

Inside the Shadow Cabinet, it would not be accurate to talk in terms of a split so much as in terms of varying degrees of unhappiness. While nobody was quite prepared to join Mr Macleod on his limb, there was no shortage of people ready to catch him if he should fall. Sir Edward Boyle and Mr Robert Carr were joined by Mr Peter Walker with very strong support from Mr Maudling, all anxious to affirm that there had been a pledge to the East African Asians, and only differing in their suggestions for the best way of getting out of it. Mr Hogg, who entered the Shadow Cabinet meeting in a mili- tant 'keep them out' mood, appears to have emerged somewhat chastened. Mr Powell has regrettably made himself more unpopular than ever, but no words can describe the general loathing for the war hero of the back benches. If a final result of the Immigration Bill is to forge an alliance between Mr Powell and Mr Sandys then the outlook is bleak indeed.

Dissident Tories argued that they could register their objections in Wednesday's Com- mittee stage, but the time for taking a stand on principle was surely at Tuesday's second reading, and it would have been encouraging to see at least a few abstentions from the front bench in support of Mr Macleod's lonely stand. In the Cabinet itself, Mrs Castle was too busy with her grotesque Transport

Bill and Mr Jenkins too busy entertaining the gnomes to put up more than token opposition. An encouraging feature of the episode was how a handful of faithful Gaitskellites—Mr Brian Walden and, in the debate, Mr Ivor Richard—filled the breaches left by pusillani- mous left wingers. Where was bouncy little Mr Mendelson when the lights went out? Not a squeak from his corner of Sheffield either among signatures to Tuesday's amendments or in the voting figures. But Parliament, no less than the world outside, saw some strange bed- fellows. I never expected to find myself beside the Archbishop of Canterbury and David Winnick. Mr David Steel, the abortion en- thusiast, was probably a little ashamed to find himself lying down with Mr Norman Stevas. Mrs Renee Short and Mr Sandys have more in common, but the magnificent Mr Paget doesn't usually look to his friend Michael Foot for support.

By far the most honest speech in support of the Bill came from Mr Maudling. There could be no doubt that we had given a prom- ise, and that we intended to break our promise. It was playing with words to worry whether the intention of the Bill could be described as racialist; we were dealing with a racial prob- lem and to that extent the Bill would be con- sidered as racialist whatever the House chose to think. While he was on the subject, it was worth mentioning that these Asians were prob- ably much less difficult to assimilate than the Negro immigrants from other parts of the Commonwealth, who had much smaller claim on our attentions. He reserved the right to vote for any amendments which would in- crease the quota of Asians at the expense of immigrants from other parts of the Common- wealth. Beside this frank statement of the reali- ties before the House, the phony liberalism of Messrs Callaghan and Hogg was revealed in all its tawdriness.

All in all, the sixty-two `Noes' in Tuesday's debate reveal all that is left of the liberal tradition in British politics. Now, at last, we have Marx's dream of the dictatorship of the proletariat—softened and scented a little by television, by the Daily Mirror and by the amiable hypocrisy of our legislators. `Quite frankly, I see this as a question of the sur- vival of our Labour Government,' said one left-wing idealist before bustling into the `Aye' lobby on what was to all intents and purposes a free vote, held three years before a general election.