Why was Lyon sacked?

Arnit Roy W. hat was the real reason for Alex Lyon's dismissal as Home Office Minister? It was said at the time that he was a bad Minister —Whatever that might mean. But immigjants, rightly or wrongly, are starting to eeheve that he was the victim of a combined Porei-n

5 Oflce and Home Office conspiracy.

It is no secret that Jim Callaghan and Alex Lyon distrusted each other. What is not so widely known is that Roy Jenkins and Alex Lyon also did not get on well, arsithough they worked together in the Home ufnee for two years. They disagreed, for ex" for over who should be appointed flea. d of the new Race Relations CornMission. Mr Lyon argued that if the Equal 9PPortunities Commission was going to nave a woman as a chairman, then the Race er°111nlission should have a black man as e, ?airman. But Mr Jenkins disagreed. ;JItimately relations between them got so ead that they even stopped talking to each other. f Shortly after his dismissal, Mr Lyon oolishly declared: 'I have paid the price of ,..trYinfg to get justice for the blacks in this TuntrY. Jim has never had much time for s,'!ose who espoused that cause.' Not that 8 basic contention is unfounded. As Home 4ecretary in 1968, Mr Callaghan deprived Cftmonwealth citizens of rights that aliens were able to retain. And at the 1970 C°rtimonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference in London, African leaders found his ,„hehaviour so insufferable that President Yerere of Tanzania was provoked into a evere bout of table-thumping before join,Ing a walkout with Uganda's Dr Milton ubote and Kenya's Tom Mboya. But by nialting his damaging claims, Mr Lyon has TerelY ensured that he does not get another Overnment post so long as Mr Callaghan is there. Which, if the immigrant press had l ,anYthing to do with it, would not be very ong.

Take, for example, the attitude of Garavi „Lticirat, a weekly which circulates widely e;".°n8 Britain's 350,000 Gujaratis. Its bmnor, Ramniklal Solanki, decided to treak with the paper's nine-year-old tradii'°o., and place a leader on page one to tiltlicate the importance that he attached to e development. The theme was simple: it rnwas. that Mrs Thatcher was likely to be the ,.a,In beneficiary of Mr Callaghan's degsion to get rid of Mr Lyon. II Other immigrant papers, including the 4e,n,gali-language Jonomot and the Urdu t,,"bar-e-Watan, gave the story similar atment, and invariably on the front page. be e English language Westindian World ,aran its front page report/comment: aelt Political circles were distinctly taken

aback when Alex Lyon . . . was dismissed by new Premier Jim Callaghan, and, instead of grinning and bearing his misfortune, decided instead to bare his soul to the press.'

Anyway, the message soon got home to Britain's two million Asians and West Indians that Mr Lyon's departure was not in their best interests. Protest telegrams poured into Downing Street as immigrant organisations up and down the country passed anti-Callaghan resolutions. But what was of much greater significance was a meeting of key immigrant editors and leaders at which Mr Lyon gave his version of events.

Meanwhile, Mr Brynmor John, an MP from Wales like Mr Callaghan, had replaced Mr Lyon at the Home Office. He has been told not to meet Fleet Street reporters in case he says something he shouldn't, but has been advised by the same Home Office officials that it would not be a bad idea if he were to invite some immigrant editors round for a drink. But if he believes that the immigrant Press can be so easily won over, he is mistaken.

Mr Jenkins, whose current stock with immigrants is not very high, has agreed officially to open the new offices of Garavi Gujarat. This is a conciliatory gesture but also precisely the sort of behaviour guaranteed to raise the hackles of those who feel that immigrants should not be pandered to as a special group, but should be treated on the same basis as the rest of society. As a principle this is admirable, but it presumes that immigrants have equal opportunities to begin with. Even the Conservative Party now recognises that this is manifestly not the case.

The most important statement by the Tories on race relations was made the other day at the first seminar held by the newlyformed Anglo-Asian Conservative Society. 'The House of Commons,' said Mr David Lane, a Tory spokesman on Home Affairs, 'is now very near to a bi-partisan policy on race relations.' Mr Lane, who was Home Office Minister in the last Tory Government, took the view that the Conservatives had been wrong in attacking the 1968 Race Relations Act.

This was because experience had proved that legislation could help in breaking down discrimination. The result was that Tory MPs, 'with the exception of a handful', now recognised the need for the new Racial Discrimination Bill, now going through the Commons. Quite sensibly, he added: 'We need to carry the consent and conviction of the white majority with us.' He went on to remark: 'That is why we need to reassure the white majority that immigration will be kept to a tolerable level.'

The point is that no group has a greater vested interest in reducing fresh immigration than coloured immigrants themselves. The joke about Russian Jews in Israel explains why. 'In their first year,' the story goes, 'they talk bitterly about the Soviet authorities. In the second, they criticise the Israeli Government for not doing enough for them. And in their third, they complain about too many Russian Jews coming into Israel.'

The Conservative Party is a decade behind Labour in its thinking on race, but is beginning to wake up. Mr William Whitelaw, 'Shadow' Home Secretary, has been busy consulting Asian and West Indian leaders. He is even threatening to go on 'walkabouts' in places like Brixton. But the Tories are deluding themselves, as is Mr Callaghan's Government, if they think that race and immigration can be handled in separate watertight compartments. It is pointless talking to a man about his children's education if he has been deliberately kept from his family for years on end.

There are two categories of immigrants due to enter Britain: there are an estimated 100,000 dependants in the Indian subcontinent, and 65,000 United Kingdom citizens of East African origin. The dispute is not over whether they should be allowed to come, but when.

To suggest that the dependants cannot be brought in too quickly because they would aggravate unemployment and housing is something of a red herring. Their menfolk are settled in this country. They have jobs and homes. In other words, they are quite ready to receive their families without undue stress on the social services. The loneliness and frustration of men without women do not need stressing. The incidence of nervous breakdown among immigrant men is disproportionately high. No wonder several barristers, absolutely fed up with Home Office delaying tactics, are preparing to take their cases to the European Court for Human Rights. The point to grasp is this: an Englishman who marries a foreign wife, even an Asian, can whisk her into the country with no questions asked. But the waiting period for an Asian who marries an Asian wife is up to seven years.

Anyone who suggests that Britain is not the most civilised country in the world simply does not know what he is talking about. The problem is that the immigration issue has not been properly explained to the public. The fact is that once Britain has met her present commitments, the new nationality laws can be introduced and the immigration barriers descend permanently.

Mr Lyon understood some of the complex human issues involved, and in his pigheaded way was trying to do something about them. He was brought down by a combination of forces. There was Mr Callaghan, whom nobody can accuse of being a liberal and who is apparently anxious to show reduced figures for immigration before the next election. The behaviour of Home Office officials also needs to be examined. According to Mr Lyon, the immigration department is mainly staffed by people who do not make the grade elsewhere. The transfer of this section to Croydon has meant the recruiting of junior staff who have no direct experience of immigrant communities but who are called upon nevertheless to make important decisions. The senior officials constantly carried tales about Mr Lyon behind his back to Mr Jenkins and poisoned the Home Secretary's mind. Mr Lyon's exit has proved that Ministers have less power than they think, and can be forced out by concerted action by civil servants.

The combined Foreign Office-Home Office conspiracy theory is backed by two bits of evidence. One is that a secret Foreign Office memorandum, which argued for a cutback in the flow of dependants, was used by Home Office officials as evidence against Mr Lyon. Secondly, no sooner had Mr Lyon been got out of the way than the Home Office prepared to fly out a senior official to the Indian sub-continent to try and undo much of the work that he had done. In particular, British entry certificate officers were to be encouraged to be much tougher when interviewing wives and children.

There are people who would like Mr Lyon to maintain a prolonged period of silence. It does not really matter whether he does. The effect of his dismissal has been to unite the immigrant communities—and that is no mean achievement given the rivalries between Asians and West Indians, and between Asians themselves—in opposition to Mr Callaghan's Government. For too long, they have put up with 'pink liberals'— a dangerous breed—speaking on their behalf. Now they have discovered that they can stand up for themselves.

And the fact that immigrants are concentrated in the urban marginals gives them a certain political importance. Mr Lyon's dismissal may act as the catalyst that could break Labour's traditional hold on immigrants, and make them think more deeply about other issues in British politics.

A hint of which way the wind was blowing was given by Mr Ajit Rai, president of the 20,000-strong Indian Workers' Association in Southall. 'In the past, we have always urged our members to vote Labour. Now, I am not sure we can do that. If the Tories turn out to be more sympathetic, well, we will have to take that into consideration.'

For Labour, the sacking of Alex Lyon may turn out to be a tactical blunder.