Incomers

I was reminded the other day that Smethwick, the town in which I grew up, was, in the early 1960's, the centre of major racial controversy. Until 1962 there had been an automatic right for citizens of the commonwealth to come to Britain. Because of the loss of so many men in the war and for virtually the whole of the 1950's, Britain needed workers, mainly in the lower paid sections of the economy. As a consequence, there was a significant influx of immigrants, people from the Carribean, from India and other parts of the Commonwealth. Many of them ended up in Smethwick and other parts of the Midlands to work at the foundries and in the factories. But in the early 1960's there was alarm at all levels at the sheer number of immigrants who had and were still coming into the country. One Tory politician, Cyril Osborne toured the country warning of the danger of a 'coffee coloured Britain' and proclaiming his belief that Britain was a white man's country. The people of Smethwick were talking in more local terms. What had previously been a ‘white' town now had a very large proportion, or so it seemed, of people easily identifiable as immigrants. They spoke little English and their culinary and other habits were not the same as those of the indigenous population. People complained that getting on a bus had become an unpleasant experience in terms of the pervading odours. They lived in houses which, because they were on low wages, were usually overcrowded, badly maintained and bizarrely painted, if and when they were. So it was not only possible to identify immigrants on the street, but often where they lived as well - a very visible underclass. They not only frightened many people, simply because they were different, but made them very worried about the value of their houses. If immigrants moved in next door, then received wisdom said that only other immigrants would then buy your house and so the value of your house would go down. Granted the then attitudes, this was true, albeit to some extent a self-fulfilling prophecy. The appearance of the first immigrant living in a street was dreaded, as it was perceived as the beginning of an inevitable decline in standards and prices. One such street was Marshall Street, about one hundred yards away from where we lived. It hit the headlines because of the ‘Marshall Street plan'.  This was an attempt by the Conservative controlled council, then led by Peter Griffiths, to buy the remaining houses in the street to sell to white people. By then, about 40% were occupied by coloured immigrants.  The decision was taken in response to a delegation of ‘worried housewives'. The housing committee chairman said:     "This is not colour prejudice. We understand that over thirty houses in Marshall Street are occupied by coloured people and we think they should not be allowed to occupy more than half the houses in any street."   Peter Griffiths agreed and later said to the Times of 7th December, 1964:     "Coloured people can only be integrated if they live alongside white people."   In 1964, Peter Griffiths stood for parliament against Patrick Gordon-Walker, the sitting MP and the likely Foreign Secretary in the next Wilson government. Against the trend in the country, Griffiths won with a remarkable swing of 7.2%. The campaign had been conducted along overtly racist lines, with the appearance on walls of the slogan - "If you want a nigger for a neighbour vote Labour'. Although Griffiths dissociated himself from the slogan, most people felt that it reflected the nature of his campaign. The Prime Minister summed up many people's feelings when he referred to Peter Griffiths as a ‘parliamentary leper‘. Rather hypocritically, however, he did not mention the fact that the Labour club in Smethwick at that time operated a de facto colour bar. What this all demonstrates is the considerable difficulty which exists for any community trying to absorb a large number of people from another background, particularly when they are so different in customs and also so readily identifiable. Concerns for the future of the community and its loss of identity are aroused and if, in addition, the incoming community makes little effort to integrate culturally and linguistically, it will almost inevitably be unpopular. If this leads, as it did in Smethwick, to economic loss for the original inhabitants (whether self-inflicted or not), then the lack of popularity will increase further and it will take little for this to result in open hostility, especially if stirred by racist groups or unscrupulous politicians. We know that the acceptance of ‘other' groups is difficult for us all from a subconscious point of view and we also now know from recent research that non-integrated communities result in less community cohesion and community involvement as a whole. It seems to me therefore that, as Tony Blair might have said, but didn't, the policy we need is "Integration, Integration, Integration".   Postscript: In October 1965, a bomb was exploded outside Peter Griffith's house which, although it caused no injury did, apparently, blow the front door off.  In the following election, in 1966, Peter Griffiths lost his seat to Andrew Faulds, but was elected in 1979 for the constituency of Portsmouth North which he served without apparent further controversy until 1997.

 Home    Caro Diario   Philosophy   Who am I?      Links