Race, the Tories and the Law
o Act of Parliament will make people like ch other or understand each other . . . ut acceptance of this does not mean that overnment can therefore do little to in- uence the situation; that it should just sit n the sidelines—exhorting people to A. flange their attitudes and habits and pro- iding voluntary conciliation machinery when isputes arise. The concept of freedom under e law is fundamental, but if that freedom s abused . . . to the detriment of . . . the 'asic rights of individuals, government has he duty to step in. This leads to our third 'onclusion, which is based largely on our tudies of legislation in other countries . . . his is that a fair, relevant and sensible ramework of law, while providing no panaceas, can . . . help to raise general stan- dards in the way men do business together.'
The above is not, as it happens, an advance extract from a forthcoming Government speech during next Tuesday's second read- ing of the Race Relations Bill—although it 'night well be. It is not even part of a state- nent by the Race Relations Board. It is, in tact, a quotation from the Conservative party's latest proposals for industrial rela- tions and trade union law, which were pub- lished last week—ironically, almost simul- taneously with the Race Relations Bill itself ----under the joint imprimatur of Mr Carr, the shadow Minister of Labour, and Mr Heath.
Yet in spite of the obvious similarities With their own trade union proposals, the Tories have decided to oppose the Govern- tnent's Race Relations Bill. At least the trade unions themselves are consistent: they are strongly against any legislative framework For human relations, whether in the indus- trial or racial field, and least of all in the crucial area where the two meet. But it does not lie in the Tories' mouths to deny the appropriateness of legislation to human rela;, tions in business and employment. Nor is it good enough for them to deny the efficacy of legislation in the specific field of combat- ing racial discrimination, without providing a respectable body of evidence in support of this contention. In fact, they have pro- vided none—which is not surprising, since the impressive corpus of evidence that does now exist, based on the experience of the United States and Canada, indicates that in a wide variety of situations anti-discrimina- tion legislation has proved successful in reducing the extent of discrimination. Such indeed was the burden of the Street Report, written last year by a group of English lawyers (one of them a former Tory MP) who had made a lengthy first-hand study of the evidence, and on which to a considerable extent the present Bill is based.
It is impossible to escape the conclusion that the decision of the Tory leadership to oppose the Bill has been based, not on prin- ciple or reasoning, but on ignorance, prejudice and fear. The prejudice is that of a small group on the right of the party who believe that the immigrants are lucky to be in Britain, and have to take us as we are. If that is the opinion of the Tory leadership let them say so: if it is not (and it is not) then they have no business to truckle to those who do hold this view.
The fear is that, if the shadow Cabinet's decision was other than to oppose the Bill, some fifty or so right-wing MPS would have split the party and voted against in defiance of the whip. Ironically, the result of Mr Heath's about turn is that there will be a split anyway when the vote comes to be taken next week, and probably three ways, too: not only will several Tories ostentatiously abstain, but a few (including possibly Sir Edward Boyle) will vote with the Govern- ment. Not only, then, has Mr Heath failed to avoid a split, and simply gained greater publicity for it, but there is no reason why he should have even tried to do so. A gov- ernment is obliged to keep the whips on most of the time, simply in order to get its legislation through the House; but an oppo- sition has no such need to try to maintain a phoney unity—least of all at a time when questions of conscience should override con- siderations of parliamentary tactics.
The ignorance in which the official Con- servative decision was taken is particularly culpable under a leader—Mr Heath- -who has made a point of setting up policy study groups on almost every subject under the sun. It was just such a group which, after. an exhaustive study of conditions and legisla- tion overseas, produced the excellent Tory trade union report. Yet over anti-discrimina- tion legislation the Conservative leadership made no effort whatever to consult those who had made similar studies in this equally com- plex field, but chose instead to take a snap decision to maintain pray 'unity,' urged Oa by legal advisers whose knowledge of Ameri- can and Canadian civil rights legislation is virtually non-existent.
That is not to say that the Race Relations Bill is perfect—on the contrary, as R. A. Cline points out on page 522, in its present form it is almost certainly unworkable, which is all the more reason why a really informed opposition is needed. It is unworkable tie- cause the Race Relations Board cannot pos- sibly do its job unless it is given (which the Bill does not give it) powers to subpoena wit- nesses and to call for relevant documents to be produced. It is desirable, too, that it should be able to seek an injunction to prevent a par- ticular house being sold, or job being filled, pending an investigation, instead of being confined to an injunction, after discrimina- tion has been proved, preventing the offender from repeating his wrong.
At the same time, while the Bill needs to be given the teeth it at present lacks—and an ineffective Bill is worse than no Bill at all— it is unsatisfactory in other ways, as R. A. Cline shows. In particular, the undesir- ability of the Race Relations Board acting first as impartial investigator and then as the bringer of proceedings against a discrimina- tor should be met by adopting the Cana- dian practice of having two separate bodies: A Board of Inquiry for the first stage and a Human Rights Commission for the second. Again, while it is no doubt necessary to take sales of owner-occupied houses (in company with other housing transactions) within the ambit of the Bill, it should be enough to do this by making estate agents (plus, of course, all discriminatory advertising) liable, without the invasion of privacy involved in bringing the house owner himself within the Bill.
But these defects—and there are others— although important, would have justified ab- stention on the Bill and a determination to improve it in Committee. They cannot justify flat opposition. It is true that the Race Relations Bill, although, contrary to popular belief, not involving positive discrimination in favour of coloured immigrants, is—like the Tories' proposed trade union legislation —unlike anything else yet on the English statute book. But then so was the legislation that openly distriminates against the admis- sion of further coloured immigrantS into Britain. Both are justified by the gravity of the colour problem in Britain, which can only get worse if the million coloured people now in this country are to be condemned to be- coming a permanent depressed class.
Indeed, with coloured immigrants still coming in at a faster rate than at any time since the peak year of 1962, when the first Commonwealth Immigrants Act was passed. the Tories would be fully justified in demand- ing a complete moratorium on all further influx—except where special moral and humanitarian considerations apply, as in the case of the hapless Kenya Asians—while the situation of the coloured people who are here already is vigorously tackled. But that the problem that is already with us must be tackled, and that well-framed anti-discrimina- tion legislation has an essential part to play in doing so, there can be no doubt. In attempt- ing to deny this Mr Heath has not proved himself a racialist : no one, as it happens, could be less prejudiced than he is. What he has demonstrated is a depressing failure of leadership.
