02.11.1995

TUC wide of the mark

Smash all immigration controls

LAST WEEKEND several thousand people marched through Manchester in support of the TUC’s national ‘Unite against racism’ event.

Predictably the organisers’ liberal ‘Racism is evil’ slogan found little resonance among either workers or ethnic minorities. Although there were many union banners on display, very few had more than a handful of trade unionists marching behind them. The unions had ‘mobilised’ their own bureaucrats and some local activists alongside contingents from the revolutionary left.

The government has just announced further anti-immigration measures, including those against asylum seekers. A whole array of public sector workers - even headteachers - will be obliged to pry into the status of workers and their children, as the government mounts its noisy campaign against ‘illegal’ immigrants. Deportations of our fellow workers continue, and vicious chauvinist assaults - not least by the police - show no sign of decreasing.

So why is it that no significant section of the working class has been moved to fight these outrageous attacks?

The problem is that liberal and leftwing protests against racism, however well-meaning, have usually been wide of the mark. Take the latest outcry against home secretary Michael Howard’s clampdown on asylum seekers. It has been easy to show that the proposed ‘white list’ policy was partly motivated by its covert appeal to racist bigots. Despite the inclusion of Romania and Poland (although not one Pole applied for political asylum to Britain in 1994), Howard has made it clear that most asylum seekers come from African and Asian countries; “My determination to improve race relations by firm immigration controls is at the centre of our approach” is the standard code for getting that message across.

This has been condemned by wide sections of the liberal bourgeoisie, typified by an article entitled ‘Let’s leave race out of immigration policy’ by Andrew Marr, writing in The Independent (October 26). He roundly attacks Howard’s proposals and the cynical formula that “racial harmony equals tough immigration controls”, but adds that “controls are certainly part of the story”!

He goes on: “Other countries make a virtue of wanting particular classes of skill and of paying particular attention to certain overseas groups. We should, too.”

That is why this section of the bourgeoisie opposed last week’s deportation of Nigerian Abdul Onibiyo, a skilled highways engineer, resident in this country since 1963. It views Labour’s approach as more logical and less oriented to short-term electoral considerations.

The prime purpose of the establishment’s immigration controls is not racist: its purpose is to regulate the flow of cheap labour. The category of ‘illegal immigrant’ is particularly useful for driving down the wages of all workers. So even the Institute of Directors and the Confederation of British Industry have opposed the Tory proposals to fine employers for hiring ‘illegals’.

Unlike the CBI, the Tories, Labour, the TUC and sections of the left, we oppose national chauvinism with its immigration controls. We stand for the right of workers to live and work anywhere on the planet.

While such a broad consensus exists in favour of keeping out ‘unwanted foreigners’, it is hardly surprising that workers cannot be won to fight racism.

Alan Fox