Immigration blame game is dangerous territory

Building Britain's Future is the government's draft legislative programme for 2009-2010. It claims "Britishness" throughout. The front cover has a union jack logo, while Gordon Brown's foreword speaks of "the best of British values." It sends shivers down the spine of those of us who regard values as universal. A small part of the programme, hyped up by Downing Street spin-doctors, is the proposal to change the allocation rules for council housing. The document doesn't say "British homes for British workers" but certainly implies it. Stating that "there is a perception that allocations policies for social housing are unfair, inflexible and act as a barrier to people being able to move when they need to," the government proposes to enable "local authorities to give more priority to local people and those who have spent a long time on a waiting list." Code for "too many foreigners are being given council houses." There may be that perception, but is it based on reality? The law governing the allocation of council and housing association properties forbids an allocation to most people "subject to immigration control" and other "persons from abroad." That means most immigrants are not entitled to social housing at all. Contrary to the "perception" that the government relies on, asylum-seekers cannot obtain social housing. No-one who is here unlawfully - because they came in under the radar or overstayed after their visas expired - is entitled. European Union nationals who don't - or can't - work aren't allowed to apply. Those on conditional visas - students, work permits, family members etc - can't apply although they pay taxes and national insurance. Only a small proportion of immigrants are even entitled to apply for social housing.

If you're not a British or European Union citizen, you need refugee status or unconditional indefinite leave to remain. British citizens returning to Britain after having lived abroad must pass a "habitual residence" test to show that they intend to remain here permanently. European Union workers may apply for social housing, but only if they remain here as workers or have been here working for at least five years. Anything less would be a breach of European Union obligations. Migrants who are entitled to apply for social housing have a harder job trying to apply than British citizens. The eligibility rules are extremely complex and so migrants who are entitled can be told (wrongly) that they are not. Those groups of recent arrivals who are entitled to apply are not in any privileged position. If they are entitled to apply, their need for social housing will be assessed just like everyone else's. Recent arrivals who don't have children and are able-bodied are as unlikely as any equivalent British citizen ever to be given a council or housing association property. Those who are assessed as eligible for social housing take their place in the queue. Research by the Equality and Human Rights Commission has found that most recent migrants tend to live in private rented accommodation, not in social housing. Their accommodation is more likely to be sub-standard than that occupied by British citizens. The second part of the promise "give more priority to ... those who have spent a long time on a waiting list" is already established law. By law, local authorities must recognise and give a "reasonable preference," otherwise known as a "reasonable headstart," to certain groups of people who have the greatest need for social housing - homeless people, those living in overcrowded or otherwise unsatisfactory housing, people who need to move for medical or welfare reasons.

Each local authority's policy must ensure that there is some recognition of those needs. In other words, someone who falls within one of those categories is given a certain number of points. But this emphasis on "need" doesn't mean that someone in one of those categories will always trump a person who has less need, but has been waiting longer. Last year an important legal case decided by the House of Lords confirmed that, provided local authorities ensured that there was some recognition of those groups specified by statute as entitled to a "reasonable preference," how local authorities then organised their allocation schemes and worked out the number of points that were given for various forms of need or for waiting time, was entirely up to each local authority. So local authorities have actually been giving points for waiting time. If the government is considering changing the law, it would have to junk the concept that those who have a greater need for social housing should have that need recognised. That would be a major policy change. Even the Tories, who legislated to implement Peter Lilley's "little list" of people such as single mothers who didn't deserve council homes, couldn't quite bring themselves to abolish preference for "need" altogether. Of course, the main point is that council and housing association homes are in desperately short supply - so people who have been waiting for years for a home find scapegoats. The recession has forced the government to acknowledge the shortage of social housing. Local authorities are finally going to be allowed to keep the receipts from council house sales, and put that capital money into building more houses. The government says that 3,000 additional council homes and 12,500 housing association homes will be built over the next two years.

That's a start. But what with five million households waiting for council or housing association properties, and the numbers set to increase as repossessions of owner-occupied homes increase, it is probably a drop in the ocean. The responsibility for scapegoating, however, lies with the government. As a local councillor in a hard-pressed local authority during the 1990s, I'm well aware that anyone waiting years for a new home looks at their neighbour and questions why he or she appears to have queue-jumped. But it's the job of politicians and the media to refute those myths, not propagate them. The slogan "local homes for local people" originates from the BNP, was taken up by Margaret Hodge and effectively now by the government. As I've demonstrated, it's simply not true that migrants unfairly queue-jump. It's wholly irresponsible of the government to legitimate that false perception. Rather than taking on the BNP, it's playing into their hands.

Why can't Constance bring her date?

Officials in Mississippi's Itawamba County School District are calling Constance McMillen a "distraction." But the real distraction is the policies of a school district that promote homophobia and discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students. People across the U.S. have been rallying to the 18-year-old's defense since the news emerged that she, with the support of the Mississippi chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), had filed a lawsuit against the school district--after the district cancelled the high school prom rather than allow Constance, who is a lesbian, to dress in a tuxedo and bring her girlfriend as her date.In early February, after McMillen spoke with a vice principal about bringing her girlfriend to the prom, a memo was released in the school stating that prom guests "must be of the opposite sex." In a textbook example of the discrimination that young LGBT people continue to face in many parts of the U.S., according to the Associated Press, 'In the court documents, McMillen said Rick Mitchell, the assistant principal at the school, told her she could not attend the prom with her girlfriend, but they could go with "guys." Superintendent Teresa McNeece told the teen that the girls should attend the prom separately, had to wear dresses, and couldn't slow dance with each other because that could "push people's buttons," according to court documents. '


McMillen told the Associated Press that she stood up to the vice principal. "I explained to them that that's really not fair to the people who are gay at this school," she said. On CBS's Early Show, McMillen said she told the vice principal that "you can't pretend like there's not gay people at our school, and if you tell people they can't bring a same-sex date, that is discrimination." Since district officials cancelled the prom, Constance has gone on the offensive, launching a public campaign for her right, and the right of her classmates, to bring whomever they wish as a date to the prom. She started a Facebook page titled "Let Constance Take Her Girlfriend to Prom!" which gained more than 300,000 "fans" in just five days. In a video posted on her page, McMillen, who has proclaimed in several interviews that she is proud to be a lesbian, thanked her supporters and encouraged them to "stand up for you what you believe in, stand up for who you are." Although school district officials have not explicitly stated that their decision to cancel the prom is a result of McMillen's case, they released a statement saying they cancelled the prom due to "distractions to the educational process caused by recent events."

Christine Sun, McMillen's attorney, said on the Early Show that this was "clearly the reason they cancelled the prom...The ACLU sent a letter on Constance's behalf, and one week later, the school cancelled the prom." McMillen's struggle has garnered national attention, including appearances on the CBS Early Show, MSNBC, and the Wanda Sykes Show, and there has been an outpouring of support from around the country. Matthew Sheffield of the Mississippi Safe Schools Coalition (MSSC), a group that works to ensure that LGBT students may attend school free of harassment and discrimination, told USA Today that "his office was flooded by people looking to help" with the Second Chance Prom, which will be held in Itawamba County this year as a safe space for LGBT students and the rest of McMillen's classmates. According to Sheffield, "We've had a definite spike in people signing on and joining our organization," as McMillen's stand has encouraged others to get involved in the struggle against homophobia in schools. McMillen told the Associated Press that she stood up to the vice principal. "I explained to them that that's really not fair to the people who are gay at this school," she said. On CBS's Early Show, McMillen said she told the vice principal that "you can't pretend like there's not gay people at our school, and if you tell people they can't bring a same-sex date, that is discrimination."

Since district officials cancelled the prom, Constance has gone on the offensive, launching a public campaign for her right, and the right of her classmates, to bring whomever they wish as a date to the prom. She started a Facebook page titled "Let Constance Take Her Girlfriend to Prom!" which gained more than 300,000 "fans" in just five days. In a video posted on her page, McMillen, who has proclaimed in several interviews that she is proud to be a lesbian, thanked her supporters and encouraged them to "stand up for you what you believe in, stand up for who you are." Although school district officials have not explicitly stated that their decision to cancel the prom is a result of McMillen's case, they released a statement saying they cancelled the prom due to "distractions to the educational process caused by recent events." Christine Sun, McMillen's attorney, said on the Early Show that this was "clearly the reason they cancelled the prom...The ACLU sent a letter on Constance's behalf, and one week later, the school cancelled the prom." McMillen's struggle has garnered national attention, including appearances on the CBS Early Show, MSNBC, and the Wanda Sykes Show, and there has been an outpouring of support from around the country.

Matthew Sheffield of the Mississippi Safe Schools Coalition (MSSC), a group that works to ensure that LGBT students may attend school free of harassment and discrimination, told USA Today that "his office was flooded by people looking to help" with the Second Chance Prom, which will be held in Itawamba County this year as a safe space for LGBT students and the rest of McMillen's classmates. According to Sheffield, "We've had a definite spike in people signing on and joining our organization," as McMillen's stand has encouraged others to get involved in the struggle against homophobia in schools. Constance McMillen is not the only LGBT student to struggle for the right to attend the prom with a same-sex date, or to wear what they want. Last fall, then-17-year-old high school junior Cynthia Stewart of Tharptown, Ala., stood up for--and won, with the help of the ACLU--her right to bring her girlfriend to the prom after the Tharptown High School Principal Gary Odom initially told her that she would not be allowed to. Also last fall, a Wesson, Miss., high school senior, Ceara Sturgis, who is openly gay, was not allowed to appear in her yearbook wearing a tuxedo. The ACLU sent a letter to school officials demanding they allow Sturgis to appear in the yearbook wearing a tuxedo, stating "You can't discriminate against somebody because they're not masculine enough or because they're not feminine enough."

Then there is Will Phillips, a 10-year-old boy from Washington County, Ark., who has refused, despite pressure from a teacher, to recite the Pledge of Allegiance because, as he told CNN, "There really isn't liberty and justice for all... Gays and lesbians can't marry...there's still a lot of racism and sexism in the world." If individuals feel emboldened to take such stands, one big reason is the explosion in struggle as tens of thousands protested against the passage of Proposition 8, which revoked same-sex marriage in California.
Actions like the Itawamba School District's, however, paint a target on the back on LGBT students. So far, McMillen has faced verbal harassment from some fellow students who blame her for the district's decision to cancel the prom. And Phillips told CNN that he has been verbally attacked by students and called a "gay wad" for taking a stand for same-sex marriage. As commenter Tom Head wrote on About.com, school administrators such as those in Itawamba County are "bullying [LGBT teens] at state expense," when they should be supporting them. Their discrimination encourages homophobia, transphobia and sexism, and gives others a green light to bully LGBT teens and those who do not conform to gender norms.

Such bullying has had deadly consequences. Although there is limited information available, EDGE Boston reports that a 2005 Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education study found that "gay teens had suicide rates nearly double those of their peers," and "were four times more likely to attempt suicide in the past year." Last fall, according to Tulsa World, a survey of LGBT youth in Tulsa, Okla., found, "Sixty-seven percent of respondents reported having suicidal thoughts or feelings, and 39 percent said they had attempted suicide." Half of respondents reported facing bullying at school, and few reported seeing a school official intervene. The bullies in the school administration in Itawamba County, meanwhile, are emboldened by the bullies in the Mississippi state government, which provides no protection for LGBT people from employment discrimination and bans same-sex marriage. Constance McMillen deserves our full support for taking a courageous stand against institutional discrimination. We should honor her advice to stand up for what we believe in--and get involved in the movement for LGBT equality.

Is immigration destroying British culture?

Everything is changing. Many people worry that we’re “losing the British way of life”. But this is an argument that can play into the hands of the right wing and lead to divisions among workers. It is often framed in terms that suggest immigration is destroying “our way of life”. But what exactly is “British” culture? No one can really agree. For some people, it is about eating fish and chips, being good at queuing, and drinking lots of tea. The confusion exists because there is no single British way of life and there never has been. There have always been class divisions, and the lifestyle of the rich and powerful is totally alien to that of the majority.
How many people are brought up by nannies, packed off to Eton, and funnelled into top positions in the City, the army and the state? Such people are said to share the culture of the rest of us. A UK Independence Party document launched this year pronounced, “Britishness can be defined in terms of belief in democracy, fair play and freedom, as well as traits such as politeness.”

Tell that to the former colonies, the workers who have died struggling for the vote and for basic rights, or the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. The way of life of a worker in a supermarket or car factory is totally different to that of a banker paid millions in bonuses, even if they were both born in Britain. In fact the lives that workers here lead are increasingly similar to workers in other countries; they are even likely to eat similar food or wear similar clothes to each other. At the same time, the global rich share the same pampered lifestyle whether they are Saudi princes, British hedge fund managers or Texan oil magnates. Culture is not something fixed and timeless. It is always changing because of wider changes in society. In Britain it was once common for some pubs not to serve women. It isn’t today, because women’s role in society has been transformed in the past few decades. What is popular or acceptable rests on wider social and political factors, not some static “culture”.And most of the time, most people are in favour of the changes that take place.

British life has been massively enriched by the influences from outside these islands on politics, food, music and ideas. Ideas about “British culture” and “national identity” are pushed from the top of society. Our rulers use the idea of a single British identity to try and control people. And, at times of crisis, politicians blame people who don’t conform to “British” culture for all kinds of things. So, they blame hip-hop music and “gang” culture for gun and knife crime. Following the revolution in Russia in 1917, a term was developed in the US to define people suspected of being communist— “un-American”. Today the state calls people who oppose its imperialist adventures “un-British”. Ruling classes use nationalism in an attempt to class divisions.
They want British workers to feel they have more in common with British bosses than with workers in other countries. They want to pressure workers, who have no interest in a system that exploits them, into supporting that system. Sometimes people on the left accept such ideas about Britain. They may say they are proud of the 19th century Chartists demanding democracy, or the anti-fascist spirit of the mass protests in the 1930s.

But these struggles are part of an international working class culture. Socialists shouldn’t waste time trying to find something to be proud of based on where we were born. We should fight for a world where ordinary people don’t need such flimsy ideas in order to feel worth something. Instead we should celebrate the real culture of solidarity and resistance that workers here share with workers from across the world. When society is in flux, and “all that is solid melts into air”, as Karl Marx wrote, people can feel insecure. But clinging on to an illusory sense of a past “golden age” of “Britishness” only strengthens the right. Our culture is the international culture of working class struggle - that’s something to really be proud of.

We must continue fighting fascist bigotry

It is generally accepted that imperialism is a bad thing, that to subjugate a nation to a foreign power is immoral. But in the heyday of Empire it was not seen like that. The rule of one nation by another nation was presented as part of a civilising mission, bringing industry, culture and enlightenment to "backward" peoples. Anti-racists today might see imperialism as the preserve of the jingoistic right, but they would be wrong, for historically it was strongly supported by many liberals and people in the labour and trade union movement. In order to rape and pillage the world brute force was accompanied by an ideology that made it all seem acceptable back home in the mother country. And that was the role that racism played. Africans were portrayed as a people without civilisation or culture, Asians as weak and backward. Racism was the ideological backbone of imperialism: after all if these people are not quite the same as - not as good as - "white Europeans" then it follows that they do not deserve the same treatment. Without racism imperialism would never have flourished.

What was true yesterday is still true today. The current war-drive and the general surge in racism in Britain are inextricably connected. Just as the old imperialism needed racism, so it is the case with the new imperialism of today. Racism back home helps to mask the reality of what is really going on abroad. That is why the militarily imposed New World Order, in the form of the constant interference by the US in the affairs of other countries, is in truth little more than old world imperialism. The war against terrorism and potential war in Iraq has everything to do with anti-fascists for one simple reason. The racism that has been whipped up to oil the US and British war machine is the same racism that has given the BNP four councillors in the last year. The BNP is doing well not solely because it has pursued new strategies, though that is part of the story. While there are some notable local exceptions, the BNP is not a well-organised national machine. The main reason that it is having some success is that the tabloid press has whipped up so much racism on the twin issues of Islamophobia and asylum seekers that the BNP - now seen as the brand name of organised racism - can clean up at election time. In places where the BNP is well organised it has obtained councillors but, more disturbingly, in places where it has done little or no work, it has often done well too. This gives credence to the view that many people are voting BNP because they find its racism compatible with their own and not because they have seen the organisation active at "community" level.

As anti-fascists we have to be clear that while we need to continue to confront and challenge the BNP, there is a powerful ideological challenge for us to win as well. That is the need to defeat the belief in the racist drivel that is being churned out by some of our daily newspapers. The biggest single contributor to the rise in racism today, and consequently the support for the BNP, is sections of the tabloid press. Day in, day out, we are informed of "evil men" in mosques and "scrounging" asylum seekers. Day after day the drip, drip, of racist ideas enters our collective consciousness. While overt racism and discrimination is frowned upon and institutional racism condemned, racism as an ideology has enjoyed a mini-renaissance. With the assistance of the media, racism in Britain has achieved the ultimate goal of all ideologies: it has become "common-sense". People often consider themselves to be opposed to racism while actually being racist. It is a widely held "common-sense" view, courtesy of the gutter-press, that "I am not racist but ... something must be done about asylum seekers and Muslims". So, in the build up to the elections this May and beyond, our task is as much an anti-racist one as an anti-fascist one. The BNP prints all manner of lies to back up people's already widely held racist beliefs. It is as important for us to refute these lies at a local level as it is to unmask the BNP for its nazism and criminality.

Opposition to Islam has come to the fore as the major ideological gel for racism in Britain. Islamophobia has been a marvellous panacea for reactionaries in the US and Britain alike. For a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union the right floundered around looking for an enemy. After all if the communist bogeyman was not pointing nuclear weapons at them anymore how could they justify the massive arms spending programme and funding of the intelligence services? The answer was simple: Islamophobia became the new anti-communism and filled the vacuum. Islamic fundamentalism became the new enemy abroad and the enemy within. Having said that it would be wrong to think that Islamic fundamentalism is not a real threat - because it is - and certainly in countries outside Europe which have no history of fascism, it is nearest thing that exists to fascism. The medievalism of the Taleban regime in Afghanistan could well be described as clerical fascism. However, one would think that hunting for terrorists was a serious job that required discreet enquiries and penetration of networks rather than the large fanfare and brouhaha that we have seen over the past year.

In Britain all the sabre rattling in the media against Islamic extremists has become sabre rattling against Muslims, and sabre rattling against Muslims in a British context means sabre rattling against Asian people. After all, the average racist does not know the difference between one Asian religion and another; the only thing they understand is skin colour. So, if you are dark skinned and you are not Afro-Caribbean then you are a Muslim and you are the enemy. That is not to say that Afro-Caribbeans are not the enemy as well, because they are just as Jewish people are: they just aren't the main target right now. For the moment the main target for racists in Britain is undoubtedly Asian people. We saw in the past few years in the northwest what that means in terms of an increase in racial attacks and general anti-Asian hostility. The summer of 2001 saw serious violent disorder organised by racists against Asians in Oldham and elsewhere. Then we had the attacks of 11 September 2001 that gave organised racists in Britain a shot in the arm like they have never received before.

Out of all the misery of 11 September and the possibility of war there is one organisation that has done very well, and that is the BNP. In fact the BNP was campaigning against Asian people on an anti-Muslim ticket long before 11 September. The reason it did this was so that it could circumvent race relations legislation that says that Muslims do not count as an ethnic group in British law. In truth Muslims was simply a code word for Asians, or as BNP activists would put it at street level, "Pakis". For the BNP all this anti-Muslim veneer is in reality good old-fashioned 1970s style "Paki-bashing". We enter 2003 with four BNP councillors and rampant anti-Muslim feeling whipped up by the media frenzy in the name of the "war against terrorism". We will not defeat either the BNP or racism overnight. However, if we can continue and extend the mass distribution of anti-racist and anti-BNP materials that began last year then we will see movement in the right direction, as the successful campaign to keep the BNP off Oldham council proved last year. It is within our power to tip the scales against racism so that anti-racism becomes "common sense"; and when that happens the BNP vote will collapse like a house of cards.

The word Islamophobia is a relatively new term coined to reflect a new wave of anti-Muslim prejudice that has grown over recent years. Since September 11th, a backlash has been aimed at all Muslims, moderate and fundamentalist alike. This failure to differentiate between the many diverse followers of Islam and the tendency to tar all with the extremist brush has meant that many innocent people have come under attack for no reason other than the religion that they follow. But unlike other minority groups Muslims are offered no special protection against such harassment. Currently Muslims do not benefit from the Race Relations Act 1976 or the more recent Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000. This is because the Acts define 'racial groups' in a way that excludes Muslims. Many in the Muslim community suffer high levels of crime, low incomes, high unemployment, poor housing, and poor health. Until new legislation is brought into play, many of these issues will not be addressed. As things stand, Muslims cannot by definition be the victims of racist attacks because they are not considered to be an ethnic group. Yet racism against Muslims is at an all time high. Gaps in the law have allowed Islamophobia to run rampant. Islamophobia is more than simple disagreement with the main tenets of Muslim theology. Legitimate debate about religion and issues surrounding Islam are not the same thing as unfounded prejudice and hostility.

Though black peoples have lived in Britain since they arrived here with the Roman armies, mass immigration did not take place until after the Second World War. While it could be argued that before the mid-nineteenth century the relationship of Blacks and Whites was generally relatively easy, the racial climate then changed. By 1919 there were riots against Black people and a Black man was lynched in Liverpool. A Liverpool paper had described Blacks as "idle and insolent, many of them living on unemployment doles ... a black menace ...". The paper quoted a police official recommending that all Blacks should be rounded up and shipped home, and that "white women who carry on with negroes" should be arrested. The retired Administrator of Bechuanaland in a letter to The Times (14 June 1919) explained why "an intimate association between a black or coloured man and white women is a thing of horror". Another letter, in the Sunday Chronicle (15 June 1919), spoke of the "negro's inborn and ineradicable savagery, and ... unspeakable bestiality where women are concerned ... There can never be any question of equality between blacks and whites."

The service of "coloured" troops to fight for Britain in either of the two world wars did not change attitudes. These troops returned to their homes to find that the economic situation had deteriorated. The only solution was emigration. Moreover, Britain needed labour. By the late 1950s, postwar immigration, invigorated if not begun by business and government recruitment, was about to reach its height. Rumours of imminent restrictions reached the Caribbean and the Indian sub-continent and people hastened to beat the ban. They arrived to a climate of ubiquitous negative racial stereotyping. (The Black children I taught in London schools in the 1960s were not expected to achieve, but White working-class children weren't either. Just keep them quiet, I was told. I remember as late as the 1970s, while running an in-service course for teachers, showing slides of West Indian housing to demonstrate that Blacks did not live in trees.) The notion of inherent inferiority to Europeans was common. Mixed marriages were regarded with horror. In the summer of 1958 anti-Black rioting erupted in Nottingham. Homes and people were attacked. The Black community, according to Dominican reporter Edward Scobie, felt that "the police were biased and not fair in their dealings with coloured people". In August, the racist flames having been fanned by Mosley's Union Movement and other fascist groups, sporadic attacks on the streets of London escalated into riots. These were worst in the North Kensington area, home to many West Indian settlers. As in Nottingham, individual Blacks were pursued in the streets by mobs screaming "Lynch him", "Lynch him". The riots were blamed by the police and the press alike on "hooligans", and on the Black settlers who were deemed to be a "problem". That the local fascists had been stirring up trouble was ignored.

At about 1am on Sunday 17 May 1959, a young Antiguan carpenter, bespectacled Kelso Cochrane, was walking home from the hospital which had just plastered his broken thumb. Six white youths attacked him, leaving him on the pavement dying of a knife wound. There were some witnesses to the crime; the police were sent lists of names; some youths were held overnight, but there were no charges and no arrests. This was clearly a forerunner to the murder of Stephen Lawrence. Black people were horrified - and organised to take action. The Notting Hill-based Inter-Racial Friendship Co-ordinating Council (IRFCC) held a meeting and decided to send an open letter to the Prime Minster, stating that "coloured citizens of the UK have lost confidence in the ability of the law enforcing agencies to protect them". The meeting demanded that the government close "racial centres" and pass a law making incitement to racial violence illegal. It also decided to seek a meeting with the Home Secretary to discuss the situation and the demands.

A delegation of the Council, led by vice-chair Claudia Jones, received a Home Office audience. It spent one and a half hours with three Home Office officials and demanded speedy action against racist propaganda, a trebling of the police force in the Notting Hill area and new legislation to prevent incitement to race hatred. This was necessary because of "inactivity by the authorities in the face of organised attempts to stir up racial hatred by fascist groups". Failing this, it would form its own defence organisation. The deputation also proposed the appointment of a Select Committee "with both white and coloured members, to go into the whole question of the special problems of districts such as Notting Hill where there are large numbers of coloured residents". According to other reports the deputation also asked for the removal of policemen "with known racial bias", and that the proposed legislation should deem racial discrimination illegal. The senior Home Office official who received the delegates assured them that the "government was satisfied that the police were taking necessary action ... It was unlikely that West Indians would be allowed to form their own defence organisations."

However, R A Butler, the Home Secretary, only promised to "watch the situation" and encourage "effective integration and consider recruiting coloured policemen ... and slum clearance". When pressed in Parliament, Butler condemned the fomentation of racial discrimination, but denied the need for a special enquiry. "Every effort will be made to encourage effective integration", he promised. "The police discharge their duties impartially," Butler assured the Commons. "Any activities being undertaken calculated to lead to a breach of the peace the police have the powers to deal with ... To take action against [racial discrimination] might not be effective. That is why I do not want to step into that without a great deal more consideration." His contacts with the press "indicate that it is willing to take a responsible view of this matter". After meeting with police chiefs Butler announced that he was satisfied with their "handling of the situation in Notting Hill and elsewhere". The "root of racial tension", according to the police chiefs, lay in "restlessness among young people and social malaise".

Butler clearly did not feel that stirring up racial hatred would lead to "a breach of the peace", as he gave permission for the White Defence League to hold a rally in Trafalgar Square. The government also refused a month later to ratify the International Labour Office's Convention on Racial Discrimination. Jones and the IRFCC did what they could. In a massive public funeral for Kelso Cochrane, about 1,000 people attended the church service and "many more accompanied the casket to Kensal Green Cemetery". Telegrams were sent to his mother in Antigua, and to friendly governments and sympathetic contacts in Cairo and Paris soliciting support. The High Commissioner for Ghana, the Mayor of Kensington and, despite their reservation about the IRFCC, the Premier of the West Indies Federation and Commissioner Garnet Gordon were among the mourners. The total cost was £257, a vast sum in those days, which excluded the actual cost of the burial. A fund was started for Kelso's mother. It was all to no avail. A few years later, in 1962, Parliament passed the Immigration Act. The message was clear and resulted in further anti-Black riots in Dudley, Smethwick, Wolverhampton, Accrington and Leeds. "Paki-bashing" and "nigger-hunting" became popular British pastimes. After a number of far-right organisations merged to form the National Front in 1967 and NF candidates stood in local and national elections, anti-Black attacks were further legitimised. Anti-Black attitudes were reinforced by the 1968 Immigration Act. Anti-racist resolutions passed by the TUC and the Labour Party remained words in the air.

Racism is at the very heart of the British National Party. It is racism that separates it from any other political party. And it is racism that attracts many of its members. Of course the BNP denies this. It knows how hateful its views appear, and has tried to make its language less crude. But the song remains the same. BNP publications are still filled with racist articles, lies about immigration and asylum, and distorted figures in an attempt to portray black people as criminals and dole scroungers.Today, the BNP has dropped its policy of compulsory repatriation and replaced it with a voluntary scheme. Make no mistake about it, this move is designed to win over supporters. The party recognise that the vast majority of people found its previous policy abhorrent. But the small print of BNP policy makes clear its true aims. The BNP claims that a BNP led government would consider forcible repatriation if not enough “non-whites” took up its offer.

If the BNP does not publicly support compulsory repatriation, it makes no attempt to hide its backing for an apartheid state in Britain. Current party literature proposes to “protect and preserve the racial and cultural integrity of the British people – and of others too, the party believes in separation”. According to the BNP 2001 general election manifesto, “native Britons”, who they claim can only be white, would be given priority in the job market. “Non-whites” would instantly become second class citizens in Britain. Any black person who commits a crime would also be thrown out of the country, even those who were born here.
Mixed race relationships would be outlawed. Privately, the BNP leaders have continued to air their real political views. “All black people will be repatriated, even if they were born here”, BNP leader Nick Griffin told Wales on Sunday in 1996. “We must preserve the white race, because it has been responsible for all the good things in civilisation”. According to party number two, Tony Lecomber, the preservation of the white race can be done through a racial eugenic programme.

The BNP supported ethnic cleansing in the Kosovan crisis. “The Serbs’ real crime isn’t the harshness with which they have expelled so many of the Albanian Muslims who having become the majority in the Kosovan heart of Serbia by a mixture of immigration, a high birth rate, and low level ethnic cleansing of the native Serbs… No! The real crime in the eyes of the powerful advocates of a multi-racial New World Order is for any people to demand the right to preserve their own identity and freedom”. The BNP says they have no truck with “race hate”. Another outrageous lie. The jokes, caricatures, cartoons and articles depict black people as stupid, criminally minded and ugly. Time and again, BNP publications talk about the genetic superiority of the white race; several BNP members have put this racism into practice. Former National Organiser Richard Edmonds was convicted for his part in a vicious bottle attack on a mixed race couple in a pub in East London 1993 BNP supporter Stuart Kerr was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment for firebombing an Asian shop in Chichester, Sussex BNP leader Nick Griffin was convicted of incitement to racial hatred in April 1998.

The BNP organiser for Waltham Forest, Alan Gould, was convicted of racially abusing people in a pub in 2000. Former BNP member David Copeland was sentenced to six life sentences after planting bombs in London. He wanted to start a race war. On other occasions, the BNP has glorified racist attacks. In 1991, the BNP newspaper gloated after several BNP supporters stabbed an African immigrant at London Bridge station. The victim had his “kidney surgically removed”, the paper boasted. In the same year, the BNP leadership whipped up a racist riot in Bermondsey, London, and led an attack on an anti-racist meeting that was protesting against the BNP headquaters in Welling. Thirteen people needed hospital treatment. A BNP presence has almost always culminated in “race hate”. When Derek Beackon was elected as a BNP councillor in Millwall, racist attacks in the area soared by 300%.

Fascism stands for the murder of millions, the annihilation of entire communities and the destruction of democracy and human rights. The BNP has its roots in the neo-Nazi group the National Front and has links with the white supremacist, violent group Combat 18. The Channel Five documentary Neo-Nazi Hate Rock showed that the BNP receives money from the sales of neo-Nazi hate music and fundraising. Leading BNP member Mark Collett was caught on Channel 4’s Dispatches documentary in 2002 praising Hitler and claiming that Nazi Germany would have been a better place to live than some parts of Britain. Nick Griffin is a lifelong Nazi with a criminal conviction for incitement to racial hatred. He is leader of a fascist organisation that openly admits it is "wholly opposed to any form of racial integration" and wants to create an "overwhelmingly white" Britain.

His spurious accusations of "racism" against black and Asian people should be treated as the fabrications they so clearly are. The BNP clearly thinks it can get away with intimidating people in ethnic minorities by throwing false accusations of "racism" and "abuse" at people who stand up to them. The police and courts should see these allegations for what they are – lies from Nazis – and treat them with the contempt they deserve.

Where oppression comes from

Everywhere we turn, we find evidence of a society where people are mistreated based on various physical, sexual (or sexual preference), linguistic, age and national characteristics. An exonerated Black man in Chicago, who had spent 15 years in prison, goes to a car dealership, puts $20,000 down for a car and is given the runaround by employees, who claim to lose his application. After the man sees the application on a desk and raises a complaint, the police are called in, and they Taser and arrest him. An 11-year-old boy hangs himself with an extension cord after being bullied all year by his school peers for acting "feminine." A restaurant manager explaining that his restaurant is a "family establishment," asks two lesbian women to leave after they hug each other. An immigrant mother from Oaxaca has her newborn taken away from her by a judge because she cannot speak English, and this makes her "unfit." Thousands of examples such as these - some milder, some much worse -could be listed. People experience many of these things as individual acts of discrimination or violence. While it is certainly true that individuals can be and are the bearers of racist, sexist, xenophobic or homophobic ideas and behavior, all of these oppressions are systemic--that is, legally, institutionally or in some other systematic form, they are part of the fabric of the societies in which we live.

Take the question of racial oppression in the United States. Indians and African Americans, and to a somewhat lesser extent, Latinos, suffer higher rates of unemployment, lower pay, worse housing, and greater rates of police harassment, arrest and incarceration than their white counterparts. Women are still relegated to lower-paying jobs, face sexual harassment and rape, and are expected to work both inside and outside the home. And increasingly in theWestern world they are faced with restrictions on their right to control their own reproductive health. Sexist imagery and commentary that denigrate women are more and more a part of the mainstream. Though, in general, the level of acceptance in society toward LGBT people has increased over the past few decades, they still face systematic legal and social discrimination, as well as violence and police brutality. A 2005 Amnesty International report documented serious patterns of police misconduct and brutality aimed at LGBT people, including abuses that amount to torture and ill treatment.

Whilst some activists and academics in the past might have been tempted to argue that these different forms of oppression have no connection to one another, the argument is hard to maintain in the face of the recent activity of the "tea baggers." For these hard-core conservatives, bashing gays, scapegoating Blacks and immigrants, opposing a woman's right to choose, and opposing social spending are all part of an interwoven tapestry of hate. Marxists also argue that these oppressions are interwoven into a single tapestry--the tapestry of capitalism. Capitalism needs oppression. The Industrial Workers of the World used to have a saying that if all the workers of the world spit at the same time, the tiny capitalist class would drown. In order to prevent such a scenario, the working class is split apart and set against itself, by means of race, sex, nationality, sexual preference and so on. Without these divisions, capitalism could not survive. At the moments they are overcome, capitalism is threatened.

The British deliberately fostered enmity between Hindus and Muslims as a means of maintaining their rule in India. "I am sorry to hear of the increasing friction between Hindus and Mohameddans," wrote a British official to Lord Elgin in 1897. "One hardly knows what to wish for; unity of ideas and action would be very dangerous politically. Divergence of ideas and collision are administratively troublesome. Of the two the latter is the least risky." Karl Marx wrote of how in Britain itself, the capitalist class stoked the fires of hatred between English and poorly paid Irish workers, the English worker being encouraged to see the Irish worker as a "competitor who lowers his standard of life. In relation to the Irish worker he feels himself a member of the ruling nation and so turns himself into a tool of the aristocrats and capitalists of his country against Ireland, thus strengthening their domination over himself." Marx compares the attitude of the English worker to the Irish worker to that of poor whites in the South to the former Black slaves. "This antagonism is artificially kept alive and intensified by the press, the pulpit, the comic papers, in short, by all the means at the disposal of the ruling classes. This antagonism is the secret of the impotence of the English working class, despite its organization. It is the secret by which the capitalist class maintains its power. And that class is fully aware of it.

The oppression of women and LGBT people has a different source, but one that is no less linked to the survival of capitalism. Capitalism depends upon the "private" family, on women's roles as housewives and mothers for its survival. As author Sharon Smith wrote, Privatized reproduction within the nuclear family consists of bearing and raising the next generation of workers for capitalism, and of preparing present-day workers to reproduce their labor each day. This function of the family has become essential to the existence of capitalism, as a cheap means of maintaining the labor force. Capitalism creates a contradictory situation for women. On the one hand, the mass entry of women into the paid labor force creates the conditions in which they can become aware of their own power and begin to struggle for their own liberation. On the other hand, capitalism's dependence on the private family means that women face a double burden of wage work and housework. That same contradiction brought about by the rise of industrial capitalism explains both the creation of a gay identity and the oppression of LBGT people. On the one hand, the rise of wage labor and growth of cities created conditions in which people with different sexual preferences could find ways to link up outside the traditional family setting.

On the other hand, capitalism's continued dependence on the family for cheaply raising the next generation of workers has been buttressed by an ideology that emphasizes heterosexuality and stigmatizes other forms of sexuality. So long as capitalism depends on the family, it will be almost impossible to completely eliminate the oppression of LBGT people. Capitalism both undermines the nuclear family by drawing its members into the workforce and weakening the economic ties that once held families together, and reinforces it ideologically because it depends on it. While certain things--like schooling and, to a certain extent, day care--have taken away some of the functions formerly assigned to the family, capitalism still depends on it to raise the next generation of workers. While capitalism has knocked the material foundations away from family life, lesbians, gay men and heterosexual feminists have become the scapegoats for the social instability of the system. The point is this. If capitalism depends for its survival on these oppressions, then the struggle against them must be linked to each other - and to a fight against capitalism itself.

Why not fight religious bigotry?

Monday night's parliamentary debate on the equality bill was one of the poorest and most ill-informed I have ever heard in the House of Lords. Despite Lord Lester's eloquent explanation of the bill, and its duty to conform to the European framework directive from which it sprang, there seemed to be a determination among the Christian peers and bishops (of which there was a surfeit) to ignore our obligations to the EU as a member state. Indeed, Lord Tebbit put it most baldly when he said: "We have a choice tonight – whether we walk in fear of the law of the Lord or the law of Brussels. I know which way I am going.""Religious freedom" seems to give these Christians an absolute right to ignore the law if they dislike it. The bishops were particularly culpable on this. As they argued for the removal of the need for a proportionate balancing of freedoms when freedoms collide (as they do with religion and gay rights), Lord Lester told them "Amendments 98 and 99 would remove the principle of proportionality. That is a general principle of European law by which the United Kingdom is bound. The amendments would remove that principle as regards differences of treatment made to comply with the doctrines of a religion. As has been said, there are a number of exemptions for religious requirements in paragraph 2 of Schedule 9 relating to sex, marriage, sexual orientation and so on. For example, in certain circumstances it is permissible, for the purposes of religious employment, for a difference of treatment to be made in accordance with a requirement either not to be of a particular sex or relating to sexual orientation – quite right, too."

Under the bill, these exemptions must be applied in a manner that is a proportionate means of complying with the doctrines of religion. Removing proportionality here, as these amendments seek to do, would mean that any religious organisation could implement the requirements without a sense of proportion and in breach of the general principle of European law. In other words, the organisation could lawfully use its powers in a way that was excessive. That would inevitably lead to complex and costly litigation, as happened in the Amicus case, in our and the European courts, the outcome of which would be to require the principle of proportionality to be applied as part of the law of the land, whatever the movers of these amendments and the seven Bishops now present may say. It is the law under European law and it is the law of the land. Proportionality is required whether they like it or not. The right for religious bodies to discriminate against gay employees is already written into the equality bill. The government was simply seeking to define the limits (ie you can demand a priest be of the faith, but not caretakers, cleaners, secretaries etc). It insisted that there was no change in the law as it had been written into the sexual orientation regulations of 2003, just a clarification.

According to a reasoned opinion (a sort of legal warning that they had not implemented the directive correctly) issued by the European commission, the government has already gone too far in trying to accommodate religious demands. The European commissioner warned the government that if it didn't narrow the exemptions given to religious groups, it might end up in the European court of justice. A complaint from the National Secular Society had led to this warning and we intend to press the commission to carry out that threat. But this debate had followed an intensive lobbying by the newly-burgeoning religious right in this country. The Christian Institute and Christian Concern for Our Nation, as well as the Church of England and the Catholic bishops conference, have mounted between them a formidable campaign claiming that the human rights of religious people are under threat. "Religious liberty" in this instance seems to mean the freedom to visit injustice and discrimination upon those who do not abide by the doctrines of your religion. To most people this would seem reasonable. "If you aren't a Christian, why do you want to work for the church?" they ask. "And why shouldn't the church restrict employment to those who agree with its teachings? You wouldn't have a Tory working for the Labour party."

The church is a major employer, often using public money to run things like nursing homes or day centres. Why shouldn't it be obliged to obey the law that every other employer does in relation to treating employees fairly? I believe that the decision last night was made on the basis of misinformation and panic-mongering. The religious lobby had made claims that the Catholic church would have to accept women priests; the Archbishop of York said he would no longer qualify as a clergyman under the terms of the bill; the bishop of Winchester even claimed that saying "God bless you" could result in Christians being prosecuted for harassment. But, if figures in the British social attitudes survey (published tomorrow) are to be believed, only 7% of people in this country consider themselves to be "very religious" and 67% think that religious leaders should stay out of political decision-making. On that basis, the government needs to give serious consideration to getting rid of the bishops' bench. Meanwhile, it seems the tactics used so successfully by the religious right in the US have now been introduced into this country. After all, the Christian Institute's strap line is "Christian influence in a secular world" and, after many false starts and humiliating defeats, it seems to have scored a significant success that may prove to be a turning point in its fortunes. If Christian influence is really a licence to practice bigotry at public expense, then it is time for all those armchair secularists to start manning the barricades.