Black against white

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'ublished by Folrose Ltd for the Workers Socialist League, BM Box 5277, London WC1V 6XX. Printed by Morning Litho Printers Ltd, Londor legistered as a newspaper at the Post Office. Signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the Workers Socialist Leagu The high priest of racial ism, Enoch Powell, ha joined the growing choru of Tories and fascists seek ing to exploit the condition of the present recession tr whip up racial divisions ir the working class.

Late last month Tory Mi Sir Ronald Bell gave vent to hi National Front style view tha black workers "from tropica areas" should be repatriated.

Singling out for attack thos black youth who have fough back on the streets of Bristo and Southall against Tor policies of mass unemploymen and savage police harassment Bell went on to complain that "One third of all the birth in Greater London are ti foreign mothers: does this mak sense? Who can be proud o being British if this is all tha being British means?"

Bell's venomous outburs was followed up last week b Tory MP. Harvey Proctor, whe demanded an end to all immi gration and an "energetic polic of voluntary repatriation"

These two racists, togethe with fellow Tory Anthony Marlow, have launched a campaign to reverse the government's already hypocritical commitment to a multi-racial society.

Thatcher herself in the run-up to the election showed how seriously she regards this commitment, when she shamelessly sought the racist vote by issuing well planned press warnings of a flood of immigrants supposedly "swamping" the British "national culture"

Loyalist

Now Powell-currently a Loyalist MP-has reasserted his leading role in the campaign to incite racial hatred.

Quoting figures simiar to those produced by Bell, Powell warned that the recent riot by black youth in Bristol was simply a foretaste of the future, in which "urban terrorism" could be expected.

The only and supposedly more "moderate" response to this from Tory Home Secretary William Whitelaw skated nimbly around the fact that the govern•ment's forthcoming Nationality Bill is an outright racialist piece of legislation that adds stili further restrictions to the already savage Immigration Acts imposed by successive Labour and Tory governments.

Indeed for Whitelaw as much as for Powell the use of racial hatred provides a handy weapon against the working class-a weapon which they are committed to use.

Racialism is effective for the Tories in two respects.

While rallying the most desperate and degenerate elements •of the middle class to the squalid banner of "patriotism" it also represents a bid to divide the workers' movement along racial lines at a time when Tory cuts and closures are creating mass unemployment and a historic crisis in housing and the social services.

By offering up black workers as a handy scapegoat for the impact of capitalism on workers' living standards, the bosses hope to prevent any united class action to bring down the Thatcher government and confront the attacks on jobs and working conditions. = In this miesion the racialists are tacitly assisted by the treacherous role played by the trade union and Labour leaders who are collaborating with every Tory cutback in the public sector, and waging not the slightest struggle against closures, redundancies and wage cuts.

It is in common action against the class enemy that the working class can best achieve unity in struggle. By rejecting such action, the reformist leaders create conditions ol demoralisation and frustration in which racíalism can fester.

The menace of racialism and fascism can be effectively combatted in the next period only through the construction of a revolutionary leadership within the workers' movement committed to:

*Repeal the Immigration *Defeat fascist violence: for workers' defence squads to defend black communities and the labour movement!

*Prepare mass action to bring down the Tory government.