Political Commentary

Waiting for Fred

Ferdinand Mount

Godot and Blucher were not more eagerly waited for than the report of the Select Committee on Race Relations. The report was in reality a handy device for postponing detailed explanation all round and defusing the immigration argument just when it was getting nasty. As the chairman of the Select Committee was Mr. Fred Willey and as he insisted on the committee being unanimous, the report was never likely to be exactly deafening. And it isn't.

The truth, by now well-known, is that the prospect of a clear end to immigration cannot be offered without going back on legal and moral commitments not only to wives and children but also to spouses and fiancés and fiancées. You can stagger them, quota them, strangle them with red tape, but you cannot in the last resort keep them out and still claim to be liberal and humane. Of course if you don't claim to be liberal and humane, that is a different matter. But the committee does so claim. It stands firm by the rights of refugees; it shudders at the thought of separating husband from wife and children. The committee's proposals taken in tow might reduce the rate of immigration by 10-20,000 a year at most — and that only at the cost of spreading the process out over a longer period. Some of the Select Committee's proposals might actually increase the ultimate number of immigrants.

The MPs who visited the Indian subcontinent recommend efforts to improve the processing of applications and regular visits by British officials to the applicants' home areas. But this is positively to encourage emigration, and to encourage precisely those emigrants who are least likely to be happy or successful, namely those who would otherwise be deterred by red tape, arduous journeys from remote villages or language difficulties.

The Select Committee report is the answer to nobody's prayers. Its recommendations do indeed parallel many of those that Mr. Whitelaw will soon be expounding for the Tories. But the parallel shows only how little may be achieved thereby. Labour MPs on the committee would not accept the Tory call for a register; it is said that the register would not work if voluntary, and if compulsory would cover only a third of those entitled to entry and would conflict with existing legal entitlements. Perhaps, perhaps not. But once again, a register might actually provoke a net addition to immigration in that, by making explicit the right to entry, indeed by shouting it from housetop and minaret as the registrars would have to do in order to compile a full and fair register they would

make the prospect of emigration svr,eeter and more readily available.

Nor can Mr. Callaghan make much out of the report either. True, it does say that 'unless the Government renounced previous undertakings, there can be no significant change in the pattern of this immigration (from the Indian sub-continent) and it would be misleading to suggest otherwise' — and that is one in the eye for Mrs. Thatcher. But the report's criticisms of government action are too sweeping and its proposals for tightening up the system are too severe either to endorse Labour's record or to act as a basis for future Labour policy. The race relations lobby will not be pleased either. In fact, it isn't pleased. Professor Michael Dummett and his colleagues on the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants have already flayed the committee for being ignorant, contemptible and racist. Professor Dummett sees racism everywhere like other people see little green men. When exWarden Sparrow (All Souls 1929-) writes to The Times enquiring as to whether he is to consider himself a racist, Professor Dummett (All Souls 1950-) loses no time in writing back 'yes, if the cap fits, wear it'. Fellows of All Souls, particularly when in residence, never forbear to comment unfavourably on each other's mode of dress, hour of rising and noises made while eating toast. In that acrid sodality, 'racist' is a relatively minor insult.

Professor Dummett criticises the Select Committee for too narrowly interpreting immigration as meaning 'black immigration'. But is not that the primary purpose of his own organisation? Would he need to defend its purposes with such moral passion if there had been a mass influx of Australians or Argentinians? For once, it is true that we are all guilty in some degree of split minds, of wishingto draw attention to the problem and not wishing to draw attention to it, of simultaneously wishing to discourage immigration and at the same time encouraging it by attempting to offer immigrants a decent life here. It is precisely because Mr. Enoch Powell's mind is not split, because he so rarely offers a word of welcome or reassurance to existing immigrants that he stands out so starkly from the muddy common ground. There is no doubt that his policy of bleak neglect for immigrants who stay here and lavish assistance for those who leave represents one of the few serious alternatives to doing nothing very much. But nothing very much is what most of us prefer to do, although we keep on waiting for some painless Godot to turn up.

Breath was less bated for another scheme for reform, Lord Home's Committee to review the House of Lords. The Lords love reviewing themselves. They are almost permanently contemplating their navels. This particular committee was set up bY Mrs. Thatcher as a reply to the decision bY

last year's Labour Party Conference to abolish the Upper House. The Tories had to have a defensible alternative. This is licit that alternative.

The Home Committee leans but '0, decisively' towards 'a mixed secon°

Chamber'. Very mixed it is too. Two-thirds are to be elected by proportional reP" resentation every nine years — so as not t°

reproduce the House of Commons. The

remaining third would be appointed for the same nine-year term by the Crown on the

advice of the Prime Minister as at present, except that to avoid accusations of Pat. ronage the Prime Minister would be under an obligation to consult a special committee of Privy Councillors, 'perhaps an enlarged version of the present Political Honours Scrutiny Committee' — and we all know how effective that is, don't we, children? H°"' ever, to maintain continuity, there would be a transitional period during which the nominated group would consist of all Pre" sent life peers plus 50 hereditary peers,: elected by their, well, peers. The resn° would be that for the transitional periq' under I.,Crd Home's own projection, the hie and hereditary peers would be in a majoritY over the elected peers. In the heat of a Peers v. People row, is that kind of assembly reallY likely to have enough democratic authoritY to act as an effective bulwark against socialism? Imagine the demagogic jeers at `this aristocratic ragbag', 'these reactionary odds and sods', 'these backwoodsmen blocking the will of the people'. Could such a, chamber really justify its claim for enlarge° powers let alone for salaries (which are both part of the Home plan, as of most schemes for reforming anything?) After all, the transitional period is the period which has to be got through. The clue to the Corn; mittee's failure is its tepidity. In a season oi calm, it is attempting to conceive a schen° strong enough to withstand a tempest. The, scheme is both too radical and not radiee' enough because there is no immediate Neilsion for it. Reforming the House of Lords Mustf come about 47th on most people's list ° What Needs to Be Done. The Committe.e seems motivated less by a serious belief °la the superiority of popular election than bYli wish to look respectably modern while managing to soothe the sensitivities of ht," peers and console the hereditary peers witue the agreeable thought that under th,, scheme they would have three ways of ge`n ting into Parliament — as an MP, as elected peer and as a representativ: hereditary peer. This would be a grim lor°,,, pect for commoners. After all, the 011..." thing that prevents the English electl peers in vast numbers is because they are% allowed to stand for the Commons and heer their peerages.