Immigration
Sir: In the harsh world of realities in which we live, it is generally conceded that it is the first duty of a politician to remain in office, and that his second duty is to protect the national sover- eignty of the people who have elected him to a position of power. Any politician who refuses to recognise the second of these obligations is unlikely to have the opportunity of fulfilling the first of them, and hence the present Gbvern- ment's attempts to show some sense of respon- sibility towards the indigenous population of Britain by refusing to admit into this country unlimited numbers of African Asians.
As anyone might have anticipated, the Gov- ernment's action has raised a storm of protest among the breast-beating liberal idealists, and yet how can one feel anything but contempt for those amongst them like the contributors to your correspondence column on 8 March who are doing their spiteful best to discredit responsible politicians by making foolish and melodramatic statements about the nature of citizenship and
by declaring themselves ashamed to be in pos- session of British passports.
Along with millions of English men and women I too am ashamed to think of your cor- respondents holding British passports, for these are the same individuals who would cheerfully deprive the present generation of English chil- dren of their racial and cultural heritage, expose them to the possibility of racial violence, and expect them to pay for the expensive welfare services so eagerly enjoyed by immigrant fami- lies who have contributed nothing towards the cost of them. If we are to concern ourselves with the rights of citizenship, then it needs to be asserted finally that the possession of a British passport does not and cannot make an Asian or an African into an Englishman any more than an elephant or a camel is capable of be- coming a part of our natural fauna as a result of being accommodated in a British zoo. How- ever, this is neither the time nor the place to discuss legal absurdities or abstractions. What matters to the average Englishman is not what may or may not be guaranteed by the possession of a British passport, but the presence of Afri- cans and Asians in the back gardens of Birm- ingham and Manchester; the clamour of their numerous children for places in our already overcrowded schools; their competition with members of the working classes for jobs that are not available even to our own white popu- lation, and their demands for legal and political rights and privileges which generations of Eng- lishmen have fought to establish and defend. The race laws now under consideration may well deprive us of one of the most valuable of those rights, the freedom to speak out in the interests of our own white kith and kin, and Mr Carter in his letter of 8 March is wise to warn us of the dangers of losing it.
Manchester, 14
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