The Path to Power

politicians to avoid speaking about immigration and race at all, and if that did not prove possible, then to do so in terms borrowed from the left of the political spectrum, relishing the ‘multi-cultural’, ‘multi-racial’ nature of modern British society. This whole approach glossed over the real problems that immigration sometimes caused and dismissed the anxieties of those who were directly affected as ‘racist’. I had never been prepared to go along with it. It seemed both dishonest and snobbish.

Nothing is more colour-blind than the capitalism in which I placed my faith for Britain’s revival. It was part of my credo that individuals were worthy of respect as individuals, not as members of classes or races; the whole purpose of the political and economic system I favoured was to liberate the talents of those individuals for the benefit of society. I felt no sympathy for rabble rousers, like the National Front, who sought to exploit race. I found it deeply significant that such groups, both now and in the past, were just as much socialist as they were nationalist. All collectivism is always conducive to oppression: it is only the victims who differ.

At the same time, large-scale New Commonwealth immigration over the years had transformed large areas of Britain in a way which the indigenous population found hard to accept. It is one thing for a well-heeled politician to preach the merits of tolerance on a public platform before returning to a comfortable home in a tranquil road in one of the more respectable suburbs, where house prices ensure him the exclusiveness of apartheid without the stigma. It is quite another for poorer people, who cannot afford to move, to watch their neighbourhoods changing and the value of their house falling. Those in such a situation need to be reassured rather than patronized. Nor, as I knew from talking to immigrants in my own constituency, was it just white families who were deeply worried. Those immigrants who had already come here and wanted to be accepted as full members of the community knew that continuing large-scale immigration would provoke a reaction of which they might be victims. The failure to articulate the sentiments of ordinary people like these had left the way open to the extremists. And, of course, the very success of those extremists was something which the Left in all its varieties could turn to its advantage. No matter how much the socialists mismanaged the economy, cut Britain’s defences or failed to uphold law and order, they were at least able to guarantee a sympathetic hearing by condemning their opponents as bigots. For the Left has never been slow to exploit the problems it creates.

Policy work on immigration had been proceeding under Willie Whitelaw’s direction for some time by January 1978. But it had not progressed very far — certainly not as far as many of our supporters, vocal at Party Conferences, wished. This was only partly because Willie himself was instinctively liberal-minded on Home Office matters. The problem was that it was very difficult to see what scope existed to cut down on present and potential future immigration.

Roy Jenkins had changed the immigration rules to allow in male fiances for the purpose of marriage to UK citizens, a provision which had been much abused. Illegal immigration, about whose size one could only speculate, had in effect been encouraged by amnesties. It had become normal practice for those who entered Britain after 1 January 1973 for a ‘temporary’ stay to be accepted later for settlement on removal of the time limit and their dependants also admitted. Work permits were not sufficiently tightly restricted. There was much uncertainty both about the accuracy of the immigration figures and, above all, about the number of potential immigrants and their dependants who had a right to come to Britain. There was, therefore, scope for action in these areas, but that scope was limited. For there were a number of commitments upon which we could not honourably or humanely renege — in particular, to UK passport holders in East Africa and (under the Conservative Government’s 1971 Immigration Act) to the dependants of those immigrants who were ordinarily resident in the UK on 1 January 1973.

Closing loopholes, tightening up administration and some new controls on primary and secondary immigration — all of these offered opportunities to reduce the inflow. But I knew that the single most important contribution we could make to good race relations was to reduce the uncertainties about the future. It was fear of the unknown rather than the awkwardnesses of the present which threatened danger. Willie Whitelaw shared that basic analysis, which is why he had pledged us at the 1976 Party Conference ‘to follow a policy which is clearly designed to work towards the end of immigration as we have seen it in these post-war years’.

Although I had not planned any specific announcement on immigration, I was not surprised when I was asked in an interview on World in Action about the subject. I had been giving it a good deal of thought, having indeed expressed myself strongly in other interviews. Nor, for the reasons that I have outlined, did I feel any inhibitions about doing so. I said:

People are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture… So, if you want good race relations you have got to allay people’s fears on numbers… We do have to hold out the prospect of an end to immigration, except, of course, for compassionate cases. Therefore we have got to look at the numbers who have a right to come in… Everyone who is here must be treated equally under the law and that, I think, is why quite a lot of them too are fearful that their position might be put in jeopardy, or people might be hostile to them, unless we cut down the incoming numbers.

Even I was taken aback by the reaction to these extremely mild remarks. What it quickly showed was the degree to which politicians had become isolated from people’s real worries. I was denounced as ‘appallingly irresponsible’ by David Steel, the Liberal Party Leader, who later added for good measure that my remarks were ‘really quite wicked’. Denis Healey spoke of my ‘cold-blooded calculation in stirring up the muddy waters of racial prejudice… to spread fear and hatred among peaceful communities’. The Home Secretary, Merlyn Rees, accused me of ‘making respectable racial hatred’. The bishops joined in. Fifteen years later, this reaction to ideas which were later embodied in legislation and are all but universally accepted seems hysterical.

Even at the time, the reaction in the country, undoubtedly sharpened by the exaggerated rhetoric of critics who imagined they had finally sunk me, was completely different. Before my interview, the opinion polls showed us level-pegging with Labour. Afterwards, they showed the Conservatives with an eleven-point lead. This unintended effect of a spontaneous reply to an interviewer’s question had important political conscquences. Whatever Willie in his heart of hearts and my other colleagues felt about it, it provided a large and welcome boost at an extremely difficult time. It also sharpened up the discussion within Shadow Cabinet of our proposals. Within weeks we had a comprehensive and agreed approach which satisfied all but the diehard advocates of repatriation and which would see us through the general election.[55]

The whole affair was a demonstration that I must trust my own judgement on crucial matters, rather than necessarily hope to persuade my colleagues in advance; for I could expect that somewhere out in the country there would be a following and perhaps a majority for me.

THE NON-ELECTION OF 1978

Quite apart from the immigration issue, 1978 had all the makings of a politically difficult year for the Opposition. As a result of the financial measures introduced under pressure from the IMF, the economic situation improved. In January 1978 inflation fell below 10 per cent for the first time since 1974 and it continued to fall. Unemployment was also falling gradually from its peak in August 1977; although there were sharp increases during the summer of 1978, 1.36 million were registered unemployed by that December, 120,000 fewer than the year before. We succeeded, with support from the Liberals, in forcing a cut of one penny in the basic rate of income tax: but that in itself would probably reduce the gloom about the economy which had played such an important part in Labour’s unpopularity and which had worked to our advantage.

Our assumption was that Jim Callaghan hoped to coast along on these gradual improvements towards an election in the autumn on a platform of ‘safety first’. One large obstacle in his way was that the Liberals now recognized that the Lib-Lab Pact had been politically disastrous for them. But their anxiety to bring it to an end was modified by their reluctance to face the electoral consequences of having sustained Labour in power at all. As for the opinion polls, Labour had drawn almost level with us by the summer and though we pulled away from them in August/September, during October and November (after a difficult Conservative Conference) they were around 5 per cent ahead, with the Liberals not even in double figures.

In these circumstances, I commissioned work on a draft manifesto. It was drawn together by Chris Patten