7 - Deracialised justifications: a case study (an analysis of the parliamentary debates on immigration)

Summary

Many features of British deracialisation are well illustrated by the speeches made in favour of the 1962, 1968, and 1971 Immigration Bills. In the previous chapter, I indicated some of the methodological difficulties of establishing that deracialisation had purposely been practised in any given discourse. Nevertheless, in the examples that follow, the tendency for immigration controls to operate in a racially selective manner is most marked, while the justification offered for the Bills rarely makes use of specifically racial description, evaluation, and prescription. The observer is entitled to remark on the discrepancy between the actual racial context and the politicians' account of it.

But, apart from the systematic nature of the deracialisation, there appears to be plenty of evidence that the politicians were fully conscious of the racially charged atmosphere in which they were operating. The effect of the Bills, of which all were either fully conscious – or were made aware in the context of the accompanying ideological eristic – was to reduce the number of black migrants. While the real intentions of the legislators cannot be unquestionably established, there is ample evidence that their purpose was the placation of a racially hostile electorate. Needless to say, the tactical ‘racism of the head’ was seldom admitted in the debating chamber. And the claim that all those who supported the measure were selfconsciously employing techniques of strategic deracialisation is impossible to vindicate.